When, they grow hungry the long file spreads itself through the forest
in a front line, and attacks and devours all it overtakes with a fury
which is quite irresistible. The elephant and gorilla fly before this
attack. The black men run for their lives. Every animal that lives in
their line of march is chased.
They seem to understand and act upon the tactics of Napoleon, and
concentrate with great speed their heaviest forces upon the point of
attack. In an incredibly short space of time the mouse, or dog, or
leopard, or deer, is overwhelmed, killed, eaten, and the bare skeleton
only remains.
They seem to travel night and day. Many a time have I been awakened out
of a sleep, and obliged to rush from the hut and into the water to save
my life, and after all suffered intolerable agony from the bites of the
advance-guard, that had got into my clothes.
When they enter a house they clear it of all living things. Cockroaches
are devoured in an instant. Rats and mice spring round the room in vain.
An overwhelming force of ants kill a strong rat in less than a minute,
in spite of the most frantic struggles, and in less than another minute
its bones are stripped.
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