After about two hours I heard a noise through the branches. I looked up and saw a solitary mondi. He uttered a cry of distress, calling upon his mate that had been killed.
Spying her dead body lying on the ground, he came to her, and uttered low mutterings of distress as he saw that she was dead. I shouted, and he fled. I carried the dead mondi to our camp, and as it weighed I judged about forty pounds, I was glad when I arrived and laid it on the ground.
Several days after this, being in the forest but not far away from the camp, I saw a leopard running quickly in front of me with one of her cubs in her mouth. I wondered at this, for it was so unusual to see a leopard out of her lair in the daytime. She was evidently taking her cubs away for some reason. I had not walked a hundred feet further when I saw the leopard's mate running in front of me with a cub in his mouth also.
I wondered again why the leopards were moving away from their lair. I soon found out. Other animals, and even snakes, were all fleeing in the same direction as the leopards. This, and the flight of insects themselves, told me that an army of bashikouay ants was advancing, attacking every living thing before them. I ran towards the plantation as fast as I could.
Soon Andekko, who had gone into the forest by himself, made his appearance. He was perfectly wild. The poor dog was crying, moaning, and rolling himself on the ground to scratch his body, on which were numbers of the ants biting him. During the night we were awakened by the bites of the advance guard of the bashikouays. They were in our houses. There was a great commotion among the mice, rats, and cockroaches. They were surrounded by the bashikouays. Wherever they fled, there were the bashikouays to attack them. The scorpions, centipedes, and spiders could not help themselves, and were eaten up in a short time.
Meanwhile all the inhabitants of the plantation were up and out of their houses, the babies in the arms of their mothers. Numerous fires were lighted everywhere. Boiling water and hot ashes were thrown upon the ants and we put brands across their paths.
"Boiling water and hot ashes were thrown upon the ants and we put brands across their path."
It took us the rest of the night to drive them away and disorganize them. We had killed hundreds of thousands of them. The men could not find words bad enough for the bashikouays. "Oh," said Shinshooko, "these horrid bashikouays will drive all the game away, and it will be a long time before it will return."