April.] 
MERIBOHWHEY. 
163 
for walking round the town. We passed a circle 
of ten or twelve yards completely covered with 
expiring insects, having bodies about the size of 
a common butterfly, with large wings approaching 
in size to that of the dragon-fly. The fluttering of 
so many thousand wings, while the greater part 
of the poor creatures lay with their backs on the 
ground, at first sight had a startling appearance. 
They appeared to be a species of ants, whose 
holes had been inundated by the rains, which had 
so benumbed them, that they had only strength 
to creep from their cells to a little distance. 
23rd. Soon after sunrise we happily got our 
waggons dragged from the cattle-yard to a dry 
place, on the outside of the town, which rendered 
our situation more comfortable. 
The chiefs came to the tent soon after it was 
set up on dry ground, and told us they now ex- 
pected we should begin to exchange beads with 
them. We stated that trade was not the object 
of the visit, but to tell them the word of God ; 
that we only wished to purchase an ox from them, 
to replace one that had been killed by lions. The 
king then said he expected we should kill some 
quachas for them to eat, and that we would not 
leave them so soon as we said He was informed 
that the rain had prevented our men from killing 
quachas ; that we could not afford to stop long in 
M 2 
