“Ah, for some retreat,”
where
“Slides the bird o’er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag—”
“Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree—”
and where are
“Breaths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.”
Further on we met another young couple, radiant with the glow of youth and present happiness, carrying all their household goods with them. These were few and simple. The man carried a machete, and a few rush mats; the woman a few simple culinary utensils consisting mainly of a metal pot and a few calabash cups and dishes. They were evidently looking for a site for a home, and probably, a few hours later had, like the first couple we saw, their simple habitation well under way.
Of these good people one can repeat what Peter Martyr said of the aborigines shortly after the discovery of America:
“A fewe thinges contente them, hauinge no delite in suche superfluites, for the which in other places men take infinite paynes and commit manie vnlawfull actes, yet are neuer satisfied, whereas many haue to muche, and none inowgh. But emonge these simple sowles, a fewe clothes serue the naked; weightes and measures are not needefull to such as cannot kyll of crafte and deceyte and haue not the vse of pestiferous monye, the seede of unnumerable myscheues. So that if we shall not be ashamed to confesse the truthe, they seeme to lyue in that goulden worlde of the whiche owlde wryters speak so much; wherin men lyued simplye and innocentlye without inforcement of lawes, without quarrellinge. Iudges and libelles, contente onely to satisfie nature, without further vexation for knowledge of thinges to come.”[4]
Later on in the day we came across more home-builders, but of quite a different kind from those above mentioned. Toward noon, we noticed some distance ahead of us, what appeared to be a greenish black ribbon, extended along our path. It was about a foot wide and several hundred feet long. We could not imagine what it could be until we were within a few yards of it. It proved to be an army of ants on a foraging expedition. There were millions, if not billions of them. Those on one side were carrying pieces of leaves about the size of a sixpence. They formed the green part of the ribbon that we had seen from a distance. Those on the other side, moving in an opposite direction, constituted the black part. They were all engaged in getting material for thatching their curious dome-like homes, which are often of extraordinary dimensions. Sometimes they are fully thirty or forty feet in diameter.