Angola and the River Congo, vol. 2

by Joachim John Monteiro

It never ventures into the light, and when it leaves the shelter of the ground always protects itself by building a flattened tube of earth or sand as it goes along; it will carry this tube up a wall to reach a window-sill or other woodwork, or right up to the roof timbers. Any object left for a little time on the ground, particularly in a closed or dark store, is quickly covered over with earth, and then completely eaten away. I have known a pair of shoes thus covered in one night, and the thread, being the softest part, devoured, so that the leathers came apart at the seams when they were lifted.

I once left a trunk full of clothes at Loanda whilst I was away for about a month on an excursion inland. When I returned the trunk seemed all right, but on opening it I found that a black cloth coat I had laid at the top was at the bottom, and under it about a couple of handfuls of dust was all that remained of my boxfull of clothes.

Window or door frames I have seen completely eaten away from the walls, leaving only a thin covering, often not thicker than a sheet of brown paper, or little more than the thickness of the paint.

Whilst lying awake one night, I noticed a peculiar thrumming noise made by the white ant when manufacturing a tube up the wall near my bedside. In the morning I carefully peeled off the top of the tube with a penknife, just sufficiently to observe the motions of the little masons within, and I saw a string of larvæ coming up loaded with little pellets of clay, which they delivered to others at the top, who simultaneously, and at intervals of four or five seconds, patted them down, thus producing the noise I had heard. This noise can be very plainly heard if the larvæ are working on the “loandos” or mats with which the huts or stick-houses are covered.

Towards the end of the rainy season the white ant attains its perfect form, and on a still, warm evening, generally after a shower of rain, a wonderful sight presents itself when the perfect winged insects issue forth in countless myriads from the ground. This is everywhere full of little holes, about the size of a goose-quill, from which the ants are forcing their way out, not singly, but in a solid compact body or stream. They instantly take wing and rise upwards for about six to twelve feet, when the breeze wafts them about in every direction. The air becomes so full of these ants, that a mist seems to hang over the ground, and I have seen the whole of the bottom of the valley at Bembe completely enshrouded by them. Great is the feast of birds and animals at this time. Birds of all kinds are attracted by the sight and collect in numbers, flying low, and gorging themselves with them. I have shot hawks and eagles with their crops full to their beaks. Poultry eat them till they go about with their beaks open, unable to find room for any more. Several tame monkeys I had at Bembe used to sit on the ground, and, taking pinches of the ants as they issued from their holes, bite off the succulent bodies and throw away the wings.

On our last journey to Bembe my wife was very much amused to see two little children come out of a hut, each with a slice of “quiquanga,” and, sitting down on the ground close by an ant-hole, proceed to take pinches of the ants (exactly as I have described the monkeys as doing), and eat them as a relish to their “quiquanga.”

After rising in the air for a very little while, the ants quickly fall, lose their wings, and disappear in the ground, leaving it covered with the pretty, delicate, transparent wings. These lie so thickly that a handful can easily be collected together. This will give some idea of the number of these destructive pests, which Nature seems to provide with wings simply to enable them to spread about and form new colonies. It is very fortunate that they do not attack live plants or roots. These soft, delicate little mites doubtless play an important part in Nature’s most wonderful plan for the balance of life by quickly destroying all dead timber and other vegetable matter that the quick growing and ever luxuriant vegetation would otherwise soon completely cover, thereby choking up the surface of the country. These ants do not wait for the fall of a dead tree, or even a branch, for they will find the latter out, and carrying their earthen tube up the tree quickly consume the rotten limb. I do not know how intelligence of a likely morsel is conveyed to the larvæ underground, but it is most likely carried by the ants. They will construct four or five feet of tube up a wall in one night, straight to a coat or any other object that may be hanging up; they will also come through a wall, in which they have bored, exactly behind anything placed against it that may be likely food for their jaws.

There are many other species of ants in Angola; one very large black kind migrates in columns of perhaps eight to ten abreast, and as much as ten or twelve yards in length; they walk very fast, and do not deviate from their intended path unless compelled to do so by an impassable obstacle.

On touching one of these columns with a stick, a curious fizzing noise is produced, which is communicated to the whole body, and they instantly open out in all directions in search of the supposed enemy; after a great deal of running backwards and forwards with their powerful hooked mandibles open and upraised, they again collect and fall into a column and proceed on their way.

I remember a laughable incident that happened at a small town on the road to Bembe, where I once put up for the night. Some of my carriers had gone to sleep in a hut, and towards morning I was awakened by screams and shouts, and saw a number of these blacks coming pell-mell out of it, dancing, jumping, and running about like mad. All the town was alarmed, and the natives came running out of their huts to ascertain what was the matter. I had hardly got on my feet when the cries were mixed with peals of laughter, they having quickly found out the cause of the terrific uproar.