MB. E. SPEUCE ON IKSECT-MIGEATIOKS IN SOUTH AMEEICA. 359 



stepping on tliem. Once at midnight, in the depth of the forest, 

 I got entangled with an army of them on its march ; which seems 

 to show that they are on foot at all hours*. 



The first time I saw a house invaded by Cazadoras was in No- 

 vember 1855, on the forest-slope of Mount Campana, in the 

 eastern Peruvian Andes. I had taken up my abode in a solitary 

 Indian hut, at a height of 3000 feet, for the sake of devoting a 

 month to the exploration of that interesting mountain. The walls 

 of the hut were merely a single row of strips of palm-trees, with 

 spaces between them wide enough to admit larger animals than 

 anfcs. One morning soon after sunrise the hut was suddenly 

 filled with large blackish ants, which ran nimbly about and tried 

 their teeth on everything. My cJiarqui proved too tough for 

 them ; but they made short work of a bunch of ripe plantain, and 

 rooted out cockroaches, spiders, and other suchlike denizens of a 

 forest hut. So long as they were left unmolested, they avoided 

 the human inhabitants; but when I attempted to brush them away 

 they fell on me by hundreds, and bit and stung fiercely. I asked 

 the Indian's wife if we had not better turn out awhile and leave 

 them to their diversions. " Do they annoy you ? " said she. 

 " Why you see it is impossible for one to work with the ants 

 running over everything," replied I. Whereupon she filled a 

 calabash with cold water, and going to the corner of the hut where 

 the ants still continued to stream in, she devoutly crossed herself, 

 muttered some invocation or exorcism, and sprinkled the water 

 gently over them. Then walking quietly round and round the 

 hut, she continued her aspersion on the marauders, and thereby 

 literally so damped their ardour that they began to beat a retreat, 

 and in ten minutes not an ant was to be seen. 



Some years afterwards I was residing in a farmhouse on the 

 Eiver Daule, near Guayaquil, when I witnessed a similar invasion. 

 The house was large, of two stories, and built chiefly of bamboo- 

 cane— the walls being merely an outer and an inner layer of cane, 

 without plaster inside or out, so that they harboured vast numbers 

 of cockroaches, scorpions, rats, mice, bats, and even snakes, 

 although the latter abode chiefly in the roof. JSTotwithstanding 

 the size of the house, every room was speedily filled with the ants. 

 The good lady hastened to fasten up her fresh meat, fish, sugar, 

 &c. in safes inaccessible even to the ants ; and I was prompt to 

 impart my experience of the eflicacy of baptism by water in 

 ridding a house of such pests. " Oh ! " said she laughingly, " we 



* See Mr. Bates's full and lucid account of these insects, I. c. p. 350. - 



28* 



