a Gnostic gem, do not pay it the least attention, never mind where it is; just keep quiet and hope it will go away—for that's your best chance; you have none in a stand-up fight with a good thorough-going African insect. Well do I remember, at Cabinda, the way insects used to come in round the hanging lamp at dinner time. Mosquitoes were pretty bad there, not so bad as in some other places, but sufficient, and after them hawking came a cloud of dragon-flies, swishing in front of every one's face, which was worrying till you got used to it. Ever and anon a big beetle, with a terrific boom on, would sweep in, go two or three times round the room and then flop into the soup plate, out of that, shake himself like a retriever and bang into some one's face, then flop on the floor. Orders were then calmly but firmly given to the steward boys to "catch 'em;" down on the floor went the boys, and an exciting hunt took place which sometimes ended in a capture of the offender, but always seemed to irritate a previously quiet insect population who forthwith declared war on the human species, and fastened on to the nearest leg. It is best, as I have said, to leave insects alone. Of course you cannot ignore driver ants, they won't go away, but the same principle reversed is best for them, namely, your going away yourself.
One way and another we talked a good deal of insects as well as fever on the ———, but she herself was fairly free from these until she got a chance of shipping; then, of course, she did her best—with the flea line at Canary, mixed assortment at Sierra Leone, scorpions and centipedes in the Timber ports, heavy cargo of the beetle andmangrove-fly line, with mosquitoes for dunnage, in the Oil Rivers; it was not till she reached Congo—but of that anon.
We duly reached Canary. This port I had been to the pre-
