168 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
fhot, however, took place, and laid him without motion on 
the ground. Yafine and his men killed another with a pikes 
and fuch was their determined coolnefs, that they flalked 
round about us with the familiarity of a dog, or any other 
domeftic animal brought up with man. 
But we were {till more incommoded by a leffer animal, 
a large, black ant, little lefs than an inch long, which, co- 
aning out from under the ground, demolifhed our carpets, 
which they-cut all into fhreds, and part of the lining-of our 
tent likewife, and every bag or fack they could find. We 
had firft feen them in great numbers at Angari, but here 
they were intolerable... Their bite caufes a confiderable in- 
flammation, and the pain is greater than that which arifes 
from the bite of a fcorpion; they are called gundan. 
‘On the 1ft of February the Shum fent his people to value, 
as he faid, our merchandife, that we might pay cuftom. 
Many of the Moors, in our caravan, had left us to go a near 
way to Hauza. We had at motft five or fix affes, including 
thofe belonging to Yafine. I humoured them fo far as ‘to 
open the cafes where were the telefcopes and quadrant, or, 
indeed, rather fhewed them open, as they were not fhut 
from the obfervation I had been making. They could only 
wonder at things they had never before feen. 
On the 2d of February the Shum came himfelf, and a 
-wiolent altercation enfued. He infifted upon Michael’s defeat: 
‘I told him the contrary news were true, and begged him to 
beware left it fhould be told tothe Ras upon his return that 
he had propagated fuch a falfehood. I told him alfo we 
had advice that the Ras’s fervants were now waiting for us 
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