Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-09-20

better could be desired than these
great inland seas. A small steamer
upon each of them-or, to begin with,
upon Nyassa and Tanganyika-with
an associated depot or two of armed
men on the higher and healthier plat
eaux which surround them. would keep
the whole country quiet. Only a
trifing force of well-drilled men would
be needed for this purpose. They
might be whites or blacks and whites;
they might be Sikhs or Panthans from
India.
"The barriers in the way of Gov
eminent action are only two, and
| neither is insurmountable. The one is
| Portugal. which owns the approaches
to the country; the other is Germany,
which has inland interests Of her own.
Whether England could proceed in the
face of these two powers would simply
depend on how it was done. As mere
| political move such an occupation Of
the interior might at once excite alarm
and jealousy. But wearing the aspect
of serious mission for the good Of
Africa, instigated not by the Foreign
Office but by the people OF England. it
is impossible to believe that the step
could either be misunderstood or OPP
posed. It is time the nations looked
upon Africa as something more than a
cnessboard.
One portion of Prof. Drummond's
book reads like fairy tale. 1t is the
wonderful romance of the white ant,
which does for Africa what Darwin a
few years ago told us the worm does
for US. ''It is small insect, with a
bloated, yellowish-white body, and a
somewhat large thorax, oblong-shaped
and colored a disagreeable oily brown.
The termite lives almost exclusively
upon wood, and the moment tree is
cut or 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.
1.-The white ant is blind; it has many
enemies. and can never procure food
until it comes above ground. How
does it solve the difficulty? 1t takes
the ground out along with it. have
seen white ants working on the top of
high tree and yet they were under
ground. They took up some OF the
ground with them to the tree; just as
the Esquimaux heap up snow, build
ing it into the tunnel-huts in which
they live, so the white ants collect
earth. only in this case not from the
surface, but from some depth under
ground and plaster it into tunnel
ways. Occasionally these run along
the ground, but more often mount in
endless ramifcations to the tops of
trees, meandering along every branch
and twig and here and there debouch-
| ing into large covered chambers which
occupy half the girth of the trunk.
Millions of trees in some districts are
thus Enthusiastically plastered over with
tubes, galleries and chambers OF earth,
and many pounds weight of subsoil
must be brought up for the mining Of
| single tree.
"Peering over the growing wall,
one soon discovers one, two, or more
termites of a somewhat larger build,
but considerably longer, and with a
| very different arrangement of the
parts Of the head, and especially OF
the mandibles. These important-look-
ing individuals saunter about the ram
part in the most leisurely way. but yet
with certain air of business, as if
perhaps the one was the master of
works and the other the architect.
They are posted there as sentries, and
there they stand or promenade about
at the mouth of every tunnel, like Sis
ter Ann. 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 formicida. Singly
or in troops. this rapacious little in
sect, fearless in its chitonous coat of
mail. charges down the tree trunk, its
antenna waving defiance to the enemy,
and its cruel mandibles thirsting for
termite blood.
1.-THE worker white ant is a poor de-
fenseless creature and, blind and I'M
armed. would fall an immediate prey
to these well-drilled banditti, who for
age about in every tropical forest in
unnumbered legion. But at the critical
moment. like Goliath from the Philis-
tines, the soldier termite advances to
the fight. With few sweeps Of it's
scythe-like jaws it clears the ground,
and while the attacking party is carry
ing off its dead, the builders, uncon-
scious 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.