No More Learning

”
I draw him to me; but at this movement my wife wakes up
suddenly.
"How you frightened me! I was dreaming
that there was a fire, and these voices in the midst of it! You
are indiscreet with your cries! ”
“Our cries! So you forget, dear mamma, that this is New-
Year's day. Baby is waiting for you to wake up, and so am I. ”
I wrap up my little man in the soft quilt, I bury him in the
eiderdown, and warm his frozen feet with my hands.
Mother dear, this is New Year,” he cries. He draws our
two heads together with his arms, and kisses us anywhere at
random, with his fresh lips. I feel his dimpled hand wandering
about my neck; his little fingers are entangled in my beard. My
mustache pricks the end of his nose. He bursts out laughing,
and throws his head back.
His mother, who has recovered from her fright, draws him
into her arms. She pulls the bell.
« The year begins well, my dears,” she says, “but we need a
little light. ”
« Tell me, mamma, do naughty children have presents at New-
Year's ? ” says the young dissembler, with an eye on the mountain
of boxes and packages visible in the corner, in spite of the gloom.
.


## p. 4892 (#50) ############################################

4892
GUSTAVE DROZ
the paper.
»
The curtains are drawn apart, the blinds are opened, there is
a flood of daylight, the fire crackles gayly on the hearth, and two
large packages, carefully wrapped up, are placed on the bed. One
is for my wife; the other for the boy.
What is it? What will it be? I have heaped up knots, and
tripled the wrappings; and I watch with delight their nervous
fingers, lost in the strings.
My wife gets impatient, smiles, is vexed, kisses me, and asks
for scissors. Baby on his side bites his lips, pulls with all his
might, and at last asks me to help him. He longs to see through
Desire and expectation are painted on his face. The
convulsive movement of his hand in the folds of the quilt rustles
the silk, and he makes a sound with his lips as though a savory
fruit were approaching them.
The last paper is off, finally the cover is lifted, there is an
outcry of joy.
«My tippet! ”
“My menagerie ! »
"Like my muff,- my dear husband !
"With a real shepherd, on wheels, dear papa, how I love you! ”
They hug me, four arms at once wind round and press me
close. I am stirred - a tear comes to my eyes; two come to
those of my wife; and Baby, who loses his head, utters a sob as
he kisses my hand.
How absurd! you will say. I don't know whether it is absurd
or not, but it is charming, I promise you. After all, does not
sorrow wring tears enough from us to make up for the solitary
one which joy may call forth ? Life is less happy when one
chances it alone; and when the heart is empty, the way seems
long. It is so good to feel one's self loved; to hear the regular
steps of one's fellow travelers beside one; and to think, “They
are there, our three hearts beat together;” and once a year,
when the great clock strikes the first of January, to sit down be-
side the way with hands clasped together and eyes fixed upon
the dusty unknown road stretching on to the horizon, and to
embrace and say:-“We will always love each other, my dear
ones; you depend upon me and I on you. Let us trust and keep
straight on. ”
And that is how I explain that we weep a little in looking at
a tippet and opening a menagerie.
Translated by Jane G. Cooke, for (A Library of The World's Best Literature. )


## p. 4893 (#51) ############################################

GUSTAVE DROZ
4893
THEIR LAST EXCURSION
From Making an Omelette): from Lippincott's Magazine, 1871, copyrighted
I
N this strange, rude interior, how refined and delicate Louise
looked, with all her dainty appointments of long undressed
kid gloves, jaunty boots, and looped-up petticoat! While I
talked to the wood-cutters she shielded her face from the fire
with her hands, and kept her eye on the butter beginning to
sing in the pan.
Suddenly she rose, and taking the pan-handle from the old
woman, said, “Let me help you make the omelette, will you ?
? »
The good woman let go with a smile, and Louise found herself
alone, in the attitude of a fisherman who has just had a nibble.
She stood in the full light of the fire, her eyes fixed on the
melted butter, her arms tense with effort; she was biting her
lips, probably in order to increase her strength.
“It's rather hard on madame's little hands," said the old
man. “I bet it's the first time you ever made an omelette in a
wood-cutter's hut - isn't it, my young lady? ”
Louise nodded yes, without turning her eyes from the ome-
lette.
“The eggs! the eggs! ” she suddenly exclaimed, with such a
look of uneasiness that we all burst out laughing - "hurry with
the eggs! The butter is all puffing up! Be quick - or I can't
answer for the consequences. ”
The old woman beat the eggs energetically.
«The herbs! ” cried the old man. « The lard and salt! » cried
the young ones. And they all set to work chopping, cutting,
piling up, while Louise, stamping with excitement, called out,
“Make haste! make haste! » Then there was a tremendous
bubbling in the pan, and the great work began. We were all
round the fire, gazing with an anxious interest inspired by our
all having had a finger in the pie.
The old woman, on her knees beside a large dish, slipped a
knife under the edge of the omelette, which was turning a fine
brown. "Now, madame, you've only got to turn it over,” she
said.
"Just one little quick blow,” suggested the old man.
«Mustn't be violent,” counseled the young one.


## p. 4894 (#52) ############################################

4894
GUSTAVE DROZ
« I am
(C
“All at once; up with it, dear! ” I said.
"If you all talk at once
“Make haste, madame! ”
“If
you
all talk at once I never shall manage it. It is too
awfully heavy. "
“One quick little blow. ”
« But I can't; it's going over. Oh gracious! ”
In the heat of action, her hood had fallen off. Her cheeks
were like a peach, her eyes shone, and though she lamented her
fate, she burst into peals of laughter. At last by a supreme
effort the pan moved, and the omelette rolled over, somewhat
heavily, I confess, into the large dish which the old woman was
holding. Never did an omelette look better!
sure the young lady's arms must be tired,” said the
old man, as he began cutting a round loaf into enormous slices.
“Oh no, not so very,” my wife answered with a merry laugh;
only I am crazy to taste my — our omelette. ”
We had seated ourselves round the table. When we had
eaten and drunk with the good souls, we rose and made ready
to go home. The sun had set, and the whole family came out
of the cabin to see us off and say good-night.
Don't you want my son to go with you ? ” the old woman
called after us.
It was growing dark and chilly under the trees, and we grad-
ually quickened our pace. « Those are happy people,” said
Louise. "We will come some morning and breakfast with them,
shan't we? We can put the baby in one of the donkey pan-
niers, and in the other a large pasty and a bottle of wine. - You
are not afraid of losing your way, George ? ”
“No, dear; no fear of that.
"A pasty and a bottle of wine – What that ? »
"Nothing; the stump of a tree.
« The stump of a tree the stump of a tree,” she muttered.
"Don't you hear something behind us? ”
“It is only the wind in the leaves, or the breaking of a dead
branch. ”
He is fortunate who at night, in the heart of a forest, feels as
calm as at his own fireside. You do not tremble, but you feel the
silence. Involuntarily you look for eyes peering out of the dark-
ness, and you try to define the confused forms appearing and
changing every minute. Something breaks and sounds beneath
(


## p. 4895 (#53) ############################################

GUSTAVE DROZ
4895
on: -
your tread, and if you stop you hear the distant melancholy
howl of your watch-dog, the scream of an owl, and other noises,
far and near, not so easily explained. A sense of strangeness
surrounds you and weighs you down. If you are alone, you
walk faster; if there are two of you, you draw close to your
companion. My wife clung to my arm.
“Let us turn wood-cutters. We could build a pretty little
hut, simple, but nice enough. I would have curtains to the win-
dows, and a carpet, and put my piano in one corner. ” She spoke
very low, and occasionally I felt my hand tremble on her arm.
“ You would soon get enough of that, dearest. ”
« It isn't fair to say so. ” And in another minute she went
-“You think I don't love you, you and our boy? Oh yes,
dear, I love you. Yes, yes, yes! The happiness that comes
every day can't be expressed: we live on it, so we don't think
of it. Like our daily bread — who thinks of that? But when
you are thinking of yourself, when you put your head down, and
really think, then you say, I am ungrateful, for I am happy,
and I give no thanks for it. Or when we are alone together,
and walking arm-in-arm, now, at this very moment,- not that I
mean only this moment, - I love you, I love you. ” She put her
head down on my arm and pressed it earnestly. "Oh,” she
said, if I were to lose you! ” She spoke very low, as if afraid.
What had frightened her? The darkness and the forest, or her
own words?
She went on:-“I ave often and ten dreamed that I was
saying good-by to you.
You both cried, and I pressed you
so close to my heart that there was only one of us.
It was a
nightmare, you know, but I don't mind it, for it showed me that
my life was in your lives, dear. What is that cracking noise ?
Didn't you see something just in front of us ? »
I answered her by taking her in my arms and folding her to
my heart. We walked on, but was impossible to go on talk-
ing. Every now and then she would stop and say, “Hush!
hark! No, it is nothing. ”
At last we saw ahead of us a little light, now visible, now
hidden by a tree. It was the lamp set for us in our parlor
window. We crossed the stile and were at home. It was high
time, for we were wet through.
I brought a huge log, and when the fire had blazed up
we sat down in the great chimney-place. The poor girl was


## p. 4896 (#54) ############################################

4896
GUSTAVE DROZ
shivering I took off her boots and held her feet to the fire,
screening them with my hands.
« Thanks, dear George, thanks! ” she said, leaning on my
shoulder and looking at me so tenderly that I felt almost ready
to cry.
“What were you saying to me in that horrid wood, my dar-
ling? ” I asked her, when she was better.
“You are thinking about that? I was frightened, that is all,
and when you are frightened you see ghosts. "
«We shall be wood-cutters, shan't we? ”
And kissing me, with a laugh, she replied: "It is bedtime,
Jean of the Woods. ”
I well remember that walk, for it was our last. Often and
often since, at sunset on a dark day, I have been over the same
ground; often and often I have stopped where she stood, and
stooped and pulled aside the fern, seeking to find, poor fool that
I am! the traces of her vanished footsteps. And I have often
halted in the clearing under the birches which rained down on
us, and there in the shadow I have fancied I caught the flutter
of her dress; I have thought I heard her startied note of fright.
And on my way home at night, at every step I have found a
recollection of her in the distant barking and the breaking
branches, as in the trembling of her hand on my arm and the
kiss which I gave her.
Once I went into the wood-hut. I saw it all as before,– the
family, the smoky interior, the little bench on which we sat, -
and I asked for something to drink, that I might see the glass
her lips had touched.
«The little lady who makes such good omelettes, she isn't
sick, for sure ? » asked the old woman.
Probably she saw the tears in my eyes, for she said no more,
and I came away.
And so it is that except in my heart, where she lives and is,
all that was my darling grows faint and dark and dim.
It is the law of life, but it is a cruel law. Even my poor
child is learning to forget, and when I say to him most unwill-
ingly, “Baby dear, do you remember how your mother did this
or that? ” he answers “Yes”; but I see, alas! that he too is
ceasing to remember.
Translation of Agnes Irvin.


## p. 4897 (#55) ############################################

4897
HENRY DRUMMOND
(1851-)
KNE of the most widely read of modern essayists, Henry Drum-
mond, was born at Stirling, Scotland, in 1851. Educated for
the ministry, he passed through the Universities of Edin-
burgh and Tübingen, and the Free Church Divinity Hall, and after
ordination was appointed to a mission chapel at Malta.
The beauty
and the historic interest of the famous island roused in him a desire
for travel, and in the intervals of his professional work he has made
semi-scientific pilgrimages to the Rocky Mountains and to South
Africa, as well as lecturing tours to Can-
ada, Australia, and the United States, where
his addresses on scientific, religious, and
sociological subjects have attracted large
audiences.
A man of indefatigable industry, he has
published many books, the most widely read
of these being Natural Law in the Spiritual
World,' a study of psychological conditions
from the point of view of the Evolutionist.
This work has passed through a large num-
ber of editions, and been translated into
French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian.
Scarcely less popular were The Greatest HENRY DRUMMOND
Thing in the World' (love), and “Pax Vobis-
cum. In 1894 he published a volume called “The Ascent of Man,'
in which he insists that certain altruistic factors modify the process
of Natural Selection. This doctrine elicited much critical commen-
tary from the stricter sects of the scientists, but the new view com-
mended itself at once to the general reader.
The citations here given are selected from Mr. Drummond's book
of travels, Tropical Africa,' a book whose simplicity and vividness
enable the reader to see the Dark Continent exactly as it is.
IX-307



## p. 4898 (#56) ############################################

4898
HENRY DRUMMOND
THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE
From Tropical Africa)
Nº
OTHING could more wildly misrepresent the reality than the
idea of one's school days that the heart of Africa is a
desert. Africa rises from its three environing oceans in
three great tiers, and the general physical geography of these
has been already sketched:—first, a coast line, low and deadly;
farther in, a plateau the height of the Scottish Grampians;
farther in still, a higher plateau, covering the country for thou-
sands of miles with mountain and valley. Now fill in this sketch,
and you have Africa before you. Cover the coast belt with rank
yellow grass; dot here and there a palm; scatter through it a
few demoralized villages; and stock it with the leopard, the
hyena, the crocodile, and the hippopotamus. Clothe the mount-
ainous plateaux next, both of them, with endless forests; not
grand umbrageous forest like the forests of South America, nor
matted jungle like the forests of India, but with thin, rather
weak forest, — with forest of low trees, whose half-grown trunks
and scanty leaves offer no shade from the tropical sun. Nor is
there anything in these trees to the casual eye to remind you
that you are in the tropics. Here and there one comes upon a
borassus or fan-palm, a candelabra-like euphorbia, a mimosa
aflame with color, or a sepulchral baobab. A close inspection
also will discover curious creepers and climbers; and among the
branches strange orchids hide their eccentric flowers. But the
outward type of tree is the same as we have at home - trees
resembling the ash, the beech, and the elm, only seldom so
large except by the streams, and never so beautiful. Day after
day you may wander through these forests, with nothing except
the climate to remind you where you are.
The beasts to be sure
are different, but unless you watch for them you will seldom see
any; the birds are different, but you rarely hear them; and as
for the rocks, they are our own familiar gneisses and granites,
with honest basalt dikes boring through them, and leopard-skin
lichens staining their weathered sides. Thousands and thousands
of miles, then, of vast thin forest, shadeless, trackless, voiceless,
- forest in mountain and forest in plain, - this is East Central
Africa.
The indiscriminate praise, formerly lavished on tropical vege-
tation, has received many shocks from recent travelers. In


## p. 4899 (#57) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4899
one
Kaffir-land, South Africa, I have seen or two forests fine
enough to justify the enthusiasm of arm-chair word-painters of
the tropics; but so far as the central plateau is concerned, the
careful judgment of Mr.
Alfred Russell Wallace respecting the
equatorial belt in general (a judgment which has at once sobered
all modern descriptions of tropical lands and made imaginative
people more content to stay at home) applies almost to this whole
area. The fairy labyrinth of ferns and palms, the festoons of
climbing plants blocking the paths and scenting the forests with
their resplendent flowers, the gorgeous clouds of insects, the
gayly plumaged birds, the paroquets, the monkey swinging from
his trapeze in the shaded bowers — these are unknown to Africa.
Once a week you will see a palm; once in three months the
monkey will cross your path; the flowers on the whole are few;
the trees are poor; and to be honest, though the endless forest-
clad mountains have a sublimity of their own, and though there
are tropical bits along some of the mountain streams of exquisite
beauty, nowhere is there anything in grace and sweetness and
strength to compare with a Highland glen. For the most part
of the year these forests are jaded and sun-stricken, carpeted
with no moss or alchemylla or scented woodruff, the bare trunks
frescoed with few lichens, their motionless and unrefreshed leaves
drooping sullenly from their sapless boughs. Flowers there are,
small and great, in endless variety; but there is no display of
Aowers, no gorgeous show of blossom in the mass, as when the
blazing gorse and heather bloom at home. The dazzling glare
of the sun in the torrid zone has perhaps something to do with
this want of color effect in tropical nature; for there is always
about ten minutes just after sunset when the whole tone of the
landscape changes like magic, and a singular beauty steals over
the scene. This is the sweetest moment of the African day, and
night hides only too swiftly the homelike softness and repose so
strangely grateful to the over-stimulated eye.
Hidden away in these endless forests, like birds' nests in a
wood, in terror of one another and of their common foe the
slaver, are small native villages; and here in his virgin simplicity
dwells primeval man, without clothes, without civilization, without
learning, without religion - the genuine child of nature, thought-
less, careless, and contented. This man is apparently quite
happy; he has practically no wants. One stick, pointed, makes
him a spear; two sticks rubbed together make him a fire; fifty


## p. 4900 (#58) ############################################

4900
HENRY DRUMMOND
sticks tied together make him a house. The bark he peels from
them makes his clothes; the fruits which hang on them form his
food. It is perfectly astonishing, when one thinks of it, what
nature can do for the animal man, to see with what small capital
after all a human being can get through the world. I once saw
an African buried. According to the custom of his tribe, his
entire earthly possessions — and he was an average commoner
were buried with him. Into the grave, after the body, was
lowered the dead man's pipe, then a rough knife, then a mud
bowl, and last his bow and arrows — the bowstring cut through
the middle, a touching symbol that its work was done. This was
all. Four items, as an auctioneer would say, were the whole
belongings for half a century of this human being
No man
knows what a man is till he has seen what a man can be with-
out, and be withal a man. That is to say, no man knows how
great man is till he has seen how small he has been once.
The African is often blamed for being lazy, but it is a misuse
of words. He does not need to work; with so bountiful a Nature
round him it would be gratuitous to work. And his indolence,
therefore, as it is called, is just as much a part of himself as his
Alat nose, and as little blameworthy as slowness in a tortoise.
The fact is, Africa is a nation of the unemployed.
THE EAST-AFRICAN LAKE COUNTRY
From (Tropical Africa)
.
NOMEWHERE in the Shiré Highlands, in 1859, Livingstone saw a
large lake
Lake Shirwa — which is still almost unknown.
It lies away to the east, and is bounded by a range of
mountains whose lofty summits are visible from the hills round
Blantyre. Thinking it might be a useful initiation to African
travel if I devoted a short time to its exploration, I set off one
morning, accompanied by two members of the Blantyre staff
and a small retinue of natives. Steering across country in the
direction in which it lay, we found, two days before seeing
the actual water, that we were already on the ancient bed of
the lake. Though now clothed with forest, the whole district has
obviously been under water at a comparatively recent period,
and the shores of Lake Shirwa probably reached at one time to
within a few miles of Blantyre itself. On reaching the lake a


## p. 4901 (#59) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4901
very aged female chief came to see us, and told us how, long,
long ago, a white man came to her village and gave her a pres-
ent of cloth. Of the white man, who must have been Livingstone,
she spoke very kindly; and indeed, wherever David Livingstone's
footsteps are crossed in Africa, the fragrance of his memory seems
to remain.
The waters of Shirwa are brackish to the taste, and undrink-
able; but the saltness must have a peculiar charm for game, for
nowhere else in Africa did I see such splendid herds of the
larger animals as here. The zebra was especially abundant; and
so unaccustomed to be disturbed are these creatures, that with a
little care one could watch their movements safely within a very
few yards. It may seem unorthodox to say so, but I do not
know if among the larger animals there is anything handsomer
in creation than the zebra. At close quarters his striped coat is
all but as fine as the tiger's, while the form and movement of
his body are in every way nobler. The gait, certainly, is not to
be compared for gracefulness with that of the many species of
antelope and deer who nibble the grass beside him, and one can
never quite forget that scientifically he is an ass; but taking him
all in all, this feet and beautiful animal ought to have a higher
place in the regard of man than he has yet received.
We were much surprised, considering that this region is
almost uninhabited, to discover near the lake shore a native path
so beaten, and so recently beaten, by multitudes of human feet,
that it could only represent some trunk route through the conti-
nent. Following it for a few miles, we soon discovered its
function. It was one of the great slave routes through Africa.
Signs of the horrid traffic became visible on every side; and
from symmetrical arrangements of small piles of stones and
freshly cut twigs, planted semaphore-wise upon the path, our
native guides made out that a slave caravan was actually passing
at the time. We were in fact between two portions of it, the
stones and twigs being telegraphic signals between front and
rear. Our natives seemed much alarmed at this discovery, and
refused to proceed unless we promised not to interfere - a pro-
ceeding which, had we attempted it, would simply have meant
murder for ourselves and slavery for them. Next day from a
hill-top we saw the slave encampment far below, and the ghastly
procession marshaling for its march to the distant coast, which
many of the hundreds who composed it would never reach alive.


## p. 4902 (#60) ############################################

4902
HENRY DRUMMOND
Talking of native foot-paths leads me to turn aside for a
moment, to explain to the uninitiated the true mode of African
travel. In spite of all the books that have been lavished upon
us by our great explorers, few people seem to have any accurate
understanding of this most simple process. Some have the im-
pression that everything is done in bullock wagons; an idea bor-
rowed from the Cape, but hopelessly inapplicable to Central
Africa, where a wheel at present would be as great a novelty as a
polar bear. Others, at the opposite extreme, suppose that the ex-
plorer works along solely by compass, making a bee-line for his
destination, and steering his caravan through the trackless wilder-
ness like a ship at sea. Now, it may be a surprise to the unen-
lightened to learn that probably no explorer in forcing his passage
through Africa has ever, for more than a few days at a time,
been off some beaten track. Probably no country in the world,
civilized or uncivilized, is better supplied with paths than this
unmapped continent. Every village is connected with some other
village, every tribe with the next tribe, every State with its
neighbor, and therefore with all the rest. The explorer's busi-
ness is simply to select from this network of tracks, keep a gen-
eral direction, and hold on his way. Let him begin at Zanzibar,
plant his foot on a native foot-path, and set his face towards
Tanganyika. In eight months he will be there. He has simply
to persevere. From village to village he will be handed on, zig-
zagging it may be, sometimes, to avoid the impassable barriers of
nature or the rarer perils of hostile tribes; ut never taking to
the woods, never guided solely by the stars, never in fact leaving
a beaten track, till hundreds and hundreds of miles are between
him and the sea, and his interminable foot-path ends with a
canoe on the shores of Tanganyika. Crossing the lake, landing
near some native village, he picks up the thread once more.
Again he plods on and on, on foot, now by canoe, but
always keeping his line of villages, until one day suddenly he
sniffs the sea-breeze again, and his faithful foot-wide guide lands
him on the Atlantic seaboard.
Nor is there any art in finding out these successive villages
with their intercommunicating links. He must find them out. A
whole army of guides, servants, carriers, soldiers, and camp-
followers accompany him in his march, and this nondescript regi-
ment must be fed. Indian corn, cassava, mawere, beans, and
bananas these do not grow wild even in Africa.
Every meal
now


## p. 4903 (#61) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4903
has to be bought and paid for in cloth and beads; and scarcely
three days can pass without a call having to be made at some
village where the necessary supplies can be obtained.
A cara-
van, as a rule, must live from hand to mouth, and its march
becomes simply a regulated procession through a chain of mar-
kets. Not however that there are any real markets — there are
neither bazaars nor stores in native Africa. Thousands of the
villages through which the traveler eats his way may never have
victualed a caravan before. But with the chief's consent, which
is usually easily purchased for a showy present, the villagers
unlock their larders, the women flock to the grinding-stones, and
basketfuls of food are swiftly exchanged for unknown equivalents
in beads and calico.
The native tracks which I have just described are the same
in character all over Africa. They are veritable foot-paths, never
over a foot in breadth, beaten as hard as adamant, and rutted
beneath the level of the forest bed by centuries of native traffic.
As a rule these foot-paths are marvelously direct. Like the
roads of the old Romans, they run straight on through every-
thing, ridge and mountain and valley, never shying at obstacles,
nor anywhere turning aside to breathe. Yet within this general
straightforwardness there is a singular eccentricity and indirect-
ness in detail. Although the African foot-path is on the whole a
bee-line, no fifty yards of it are ever straight. And the reason
is not far to seek. If a stone is encountered, no native will ever
think of removing it. Why should he ? It is easier to walk
round it. The next man who comes that way will do the same.
He knows that a hundred men are following him; he looks at
the stone; a moment, and it might be unearthed and tossed
aside, but no - he also holds on his way. It is not that he
resents the trouble, it is the idea that is wanting. It would no
more occur to him that that stone was a displaceable object, and
that for the general weal he might displace it, than that its
feldspar was of the orthoclase variety. Generations and genera-
tions of men have passed that stone, and it still waits for a man
with an altruistic idea. But it would be a very stony country in-
deed - and Africa is far from stony – that would wholly account
for the aggravating obliqueness and indecision of the African
foot-path. Probably each four miles, on an average path, is spun
out, by an infinite series of minor sinuosities, to five or six. Now,
these deflections are not meaningless. Each has some history -


## p. 4904 (#62) ############################################

4904
HENRY DRUMMOND
man
ever
a history dating back perhaps a thousand years, but to which all
clue has centuries ago been lost. The leading cause probably is
fallen trees.
When a tree falls across a path no
removes it. As in the case of the stone, the native goes round
it. It is too green to burn in his hut; before it is dry and the
white ants have eaten it, the new detour has become part and
parcel of the path. The smaller irregularities, on the other hand,
represent the trees and stumps of the primeval forest where the
track was made at first. But whatever the cause, it is certain
that for persistent straightforwardness in the general, and utter
vacillation and irresolution in the particular, the African roads
are unique in engineering.
Though one of the smaller African lakes, Shirwa is probably
larger than all the lakes of Great Britain put together. With the
splendid environment of mountains on three of its sides, softened
and distanced by perpetual summer haze, it reminds one some-
what of the Great Salt Lake simmering in the July sun. We
pitched our tent for a day or two on its western shore, among a
harmless and surprised people who had never gazed on the pallid
countenances of Englishmen before. Owing to the ravages of
the slaver, the people of Shirwa are few, scattered, and poor, and
live in abiding terror. The densest population is to be found on
the small island, heavily timbered with baobabs, which forms a
picturesque feature of the northern end. These Wa-Nyassa, or
people of the lake, as they call themselves, have been driven
away by fear, and they rarely leave their lake dwelling unless
under cover of night. Even then they are liable to capture by
any man of a stronger tribe who happens to meet them, and
numbers who have been kidnapped in this way are to be found
in the villages of neighboring chiefs. This is an amenity of
existence in Africa that strikes one
very terrible.
It is
impossible for those at home to understand how literally sav-
age man is a chattel, and how much his life is spent in the
mere safeguarding of his main asset, i. c. , himself. There are
actually districts in Africa where thrce natives cannot be sent on
a message, in case two should combine and sell the third before
they return.
as


## p. 4905 (#63) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4905
WHITE ANTS
From (Tropical Africa)
T"
He termite or white ant is a small insect, with a bloated, yel-
lowish-white body, and a somewhat large thorax, oblong-
shaped, and colored a disagreeable oily brown. The flabby,
tallow-like body makes this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is
for quite another reason that the white ant is the worst abused
of all living vermin in warm countries. The termite lives almost
exclusively upon wood; and the moment a tree is cut or a log
sawn for any economical purpose, this insect is upon its track.
One may never see the insect, possibly, in the flesh, for it lives
underground; but its ravages confront one at every turn. You
build your house perhaps, and for a few months fancy you have
pitched upon the one solitary site in the country where there are
no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and
lintel and rafters come down together with a crash. You look
at a section of the wrecked timbers, and discover that the whole
inside is eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which
the rest of the house is built are now mere cylinders of bark,
and through the thickest of them you could push your little
finger. Furniture, tables, chairs, chests of drawers, everything
made of wood, is inevitably attacked, and in a single night a
strong trunk is often riddled through and through, and turned
into match wood. There is no limit, in fact, to the depredation
by these insects, and they will eat books, or leather, or cloth, or
anything; and in many parts of Africa I believe if a man lay
down to sleep with a wooden leg, it would be a heap of sawdust
in the morning So much feared is this insect now, that no one
in certain parts of India and Africa ever attempts to travel with
such a thing as a wooden trunk. On the Tanganyika plateau I
have camped on ground which was as hard as adamant, and as
innocent of white ants apparently as the pavement of St. Paul's;
and wakened next morning to find a stout wooden box almost
gnawed to pieces. Leather portmanteaus share the same fate,
and the only substances which seem to defy the marauders are
iron and tin.
But what has this to do with earth or with agriculture? The
most important point in the work of the white ant remains to be


## p. 4906 (#64) ############################################

4906
HENRY DRUMMOND
noted. I have already said that the white ant is never seen.
Why he should have such a repugnance to being looked at is at
first sight a mystery, seeing that he himself is stone blind. But
his coyness is really due to the desire for self-protection; for
the moment his juicy body shows itself above ground there are
a dozen enemies waiting to devour it. And yet, the white ant
can never procure any food until it comes above ground. Nor
will it meet the case for the insect to come to the surface under
the shadow of night. Night in the tropics, so far as animal life
is concerned, is as the day. It is the great feeding-time, the
great fighting-time, the carnival of the carnivores, and of all
beasts, birds, and insects of prey, from the least to the greatest.
It is clear then that darkness is no protection to the white ant;
and yet without coming out of the ground it cannot live. How
does it solve the difficulty ? It takes the ground out along with
it. I have seen white ants working on the top of a high tree,
and yet they were underground. They took up some of the
ground with them to the tree-top; just as the Esquimaux heap
up snow, building it into the low tunnel-huts in which they live,
so the white ants collect earth, only in this case not from the
surface, but from some depth underneath the ground, and plaster
it into tunneled ways. Occasionally these run along the ground,
but more often mount in endless ramifications to the top of trees,
meandering along every branch and twig, and here and there
debouching into large covered chambers which occupy half the
girth of the trunk. Millions of trees in some districts are thus
fantastically plastered over with tubes, galleries, and chambers of
earth, and many pounds' weight of subsoil must be brought up
for the mining of even a single tree. The building material is
conveyed by the insects up a central pipe with which all the
galleries communicate, and which at the downward end connects
with a series of subterranean passages leading deep into the
earth. The method of building the tunnels and covered ways is
as follows: At the foot of a tree the tiniest hole cautiously
opens in the ground close to the bark.
A small head appears,
with a grain of earth clasped in its jaws. Against the tree
trunk this earth-grain is deposited, and the head is withdrawn.
Presently it reappears with another grain of earth; this is laid
beside the first, rammed tight against it, and again the builder
descends underground for more. The third grain is not placed
against the tree, but against the former grain; a fourth, a fifth,


## p. 4907 (#65) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4907
and a sixth follow, and the plan of the foundation begins to sug-
gest itself as soon as these are in position. The stones or grains
or pellets of earth are arranged in a semicircular wall; the ter-
mite, now assisted by three or four others, standing in the middle
between the sheltering wall and the tree, and working briskly with
head and mandible to strengthen the position. The wall in fact
forms a small moon-rampart, and as it grows higher and higher it
soon becomes evident that it is going to grow from a low battle-
ment into a long perpendicular tunnel running up the side of the
tree. The workers, safely ensconced inside, are now carrying up
the structure with great rapidity, disappearing in turn as soon as
they have laid their stone, and rushing off to bring up another.
The way in which the building is done is extremely curious, and
one could watch the movement of these wonderful little masons
by the hour. Each stone as it is brought to the top is first of
all covered with mortar. Of course, without this the whole tun-
nel would crumble into dust before reaching the height of half
an inch; but the termite pours over the stone a moist sticky
secretion, turning the grain round and round with its mandibles
until the whole is covered with slime. Then it places the stone
with great care upon the top of the wall, works it about vigor-
ously for a moment or two till it is well jammed into its place,
and then starts off instantly for another load.
Peering over the growing wall, one soon discovers one, two,
or more termites of a somewhat larger build, considerably longer,
and with a very different arrangement of the parts of the head,
and especially of the mandibles. These important-looking indi-
viduals saunter about the rampart in the most leisurely way, but
yet with a certain air of business, as if perhaps the one was the
master of works and the other the architect. But closer obser-
vation suggests that they are in no wise superintending opera-
tions, nor in any immediate way contributing to the structure,
for they take not the slightest notice either of the workers or
the works. They are posted there in fact as sentries; and there
they stand, or promenade about, at the mouth of every tun-
nel, like Sister Anne, to see if anybody is coming. Sometimes
somebody does come, in the shape of another ant; the real
ant this time, not the defenseless Neuropteron, but some valiant
and belted knight from the warlike Formicide. Singly or in
troops, this rapacious little insect, fearless in its chitinous coat of
mail, charges down the tree trunk, its antenna waving defiance


## p. 4908 (#66) ############################################

4908
HENRY DRUMMOND
to the enemy and its cruel mandibles thirsting for termite
blood. The worker white ant is a poor defenseless creature, and
blind and unarmed, would fall an immediate prey to these well-
drilled banditti, who forage about in every tropical forest in un-
numbered legion. But at the critical moment, like Goliath from
the Philistines, the soldier termite advances to the fight. With
a few sweeps of its scythe-like jaws it clears the ground, and
while the attacking party is carrying off its dead, the builders,
unconscious of the fray, quietly continue their work. To every
hundred workers in a white-ant colony, which numbers many
thousands of individuals, there are perhaps two of these fighting
men. The division of labor here is very wonderful; and the fact
that besides these two specialized forms there are in every nest
two other kinds of the same insect, the kings and queens, shows
the remarkable height to which civilization in these communities
has attained.
But where is this tunnel going to, and what object have the
insects in view in ascending this lofty tree? Thirty feet from
the ground, across innumerable forks, at the end of a long
branch, are a few feet of dead wood. How the ants know it is
there, how they know its sap has dried up, and that it is now
fit for the termites' food, is a mystery. Possibly they do not
know, and are only prospecting on the chance. The fact that
they sometimes make straight for the decaying limb argues in
these instances a kind of definite instinct; but on the other hand,
the fact that in most cases the whole tree, in every branch and
limb, is covered with termite tunnels, would show perhaps that
they work most commonly on speculation, while the number of
abandoned tunnels, ending on a sound branch in a cul de sac,
proves how often they must suffer the usual disappointments of
all such adventurers. The extent to which these insects carry
on their tunneling is quite incredible, until one has seen it in
nature with his own eyes. The tunnels are perhaps about the
thickness of a small-sized gas-pipe, but there are junctions here
and there of large dimensions, and occasionally patches of earth-
work are found, embracing nearly the whole trunk for some feet.
The outside of these tunnels, which are never quite straight, but
wander irregularly along stem and branch, resembles in texture
a coarse sandpaper; and the color, although this naturally varies
with the soil, is usually a reddish brown. The quantity of earth
and mud plastered over a single tree is often enormous; and


## p. 4909 (#67) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4909
when one thinks that it is not only an isolated specimen here
and there that is frescoed in this way, but often all the trees of
a forest, some idea will be formed of the magnitude of the
operations of these insects, and the extent of their influence upon
the soil which they are thus ceaselessly transporting from under-
neath the ground.
In traveling through the great forests of the Rocky Mount-
ains or of the Western States, the broken branches and fallen
trunks, strewing the ground breast-high with all sorts of decay-
ing litter, frequently make locomotion impossible.
To attempt
to ride through these Western forests, with their meshwork of
interlocked branches and decaying trunks, is often out of the
question, and one has to dismount and drag his horse after him
as if he were clambering through a wood-yard. But in an Afri-
can forest not a fallen branch is seen. One is struck at first at
a certain clean look about the great forests of the interior, a
novel and unaccountable cleanness, as if the forest bed was care-
fully swept and dusted daily by unseen elves. And so indeed
it is. Scavengers of a hundred kinds remove decaying animal
matter, from the carcass of a fallen elephant to the broken wing
of a gnat; eating it, or carrying it out of sight and burying
it in the deodorizing earth. And these countless millions of
termites perform a similar function for the vegetable world,
making away with all plants and trees, all stems, twigs, and
tissues, the moment the finger of decay strikes the signal. Con-
stantly in these w ds one comes across what appear to be sticks
and branches and bundles of fagots, but when closely examined
they are to be mere casts in mud. From these hollow
tubes, which preserve the original form of the branch down to
the minutest knot or fork, the ligneous tissue is often entirely
removed, while others are met with in all stages of demolition.
There is the section of an actual specimen, which is not yet
completely destroyed, and from which the mode of attack may
be easily seen. The insects start apparently from two centres.
One company attacks the inner bark, which is the favorite mor-
sel, leaving the coarse outer bark untouched, or more usually
replacing it with grains of earth, atom by atom, as they eat it
away. The inner bark is gnawed off likewise as they go along,
but the woody tissue beneath is allowed to remain, to form a
protective sheath for the second company, who begin work at
the centre. This second contingent eats its way outward and
seen


## p. 4910 (#68) ############################################

4910
HENRY DRUMMOND
onward, leaving a thin tube of the outer wood to the last, as
props to the mine, till they have finished the main excavation.
When a fallen trunk lying upon the ground is the object of
attack, the outer cylinder is frequently left quite intact, and it is
only when one tries to drag it off to his camp-fire that he finds
to his disgust that he is dealing with a mere hollow tube, a few
lines in thickness, filled up with mud.
But the works above ground represent only a part of the
labors of these slow-moving but most industrious of creatures.
The arboreal tubes are only the prolongation of a much more
elaborate system of subterranean tunnels, which extend over large
areas and mine the earth sometimes to a depth of many feet or
even yards.
The material excavated from these underground galleries and
from the succession of domed chambers — used as nurseries or
granaries -- to which they lead, has to be thrown out upon the
surface. And it is from these materials that the huge ant-hills
are reared, which form so distinctive a feature of the African
landscape. These heaps and mounds are so conspicuous that
they may be seen for miles, and so numerous are they and so
useful as cover to the sportsman, that without them in certain
districts hunting would be impossible. The first things, indeed,
to strike the traveler in entering the interior are the mounds of
the white ant, now dotting the plain in groups like a small
cemetery, now rising into mounds, singly or in clusters, each
thirty or forty feet in diameter and ten or fifteen in height; or
again, standing out against the sky like obelisks, their bare sides
carved and futed into all sorts of fantastic shapes. In India
these ant-heaps seldom attain a height of more than a couple of
feet, but in Central Africa they form veritable hills, and contain
many tons of earth. The brick houses of the Scotch mission-
station on Lake Nyassa have all been built out of a single ants'
nest, and the quarry from which the material has been derived
forms a pit beside the settlement some dozen feet in depth. A
supply of bricks as large again could probably still be taken
from this convenient depot; and the missionaries on Lake Tan-
ganyika and onwards to Victoria Nyanza have been similarly
indebted to the labors of the termites. In South Africa the
Zulus and Kaffirs pave all their huts with white-ant earth; and
during the Boer war our troops in Pretoria, by scooping out the
interior from the smailer beehive-shaped ant-heaps and covering


## p. 4911 (#69) ############################################

HENRY DRUMMOND
4911
the top with clay, constantly used them as ovens.