UNDERGROUND BASHIKOUAY.

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Small Underground Bashikouay.

This ant is not so much dreaded as the formidable reddishblack bashikouay. It is smaller, of a reddish color, and does not live in the forest, but in the villages and houses among men. It does not appear in numbers aboveground till it smells food near. Then they issue from a great number of little holes in the ground, whose passages seem all to communicate with each other below the ground. Its bite, though not so terrible as that of the bashikouay, is still very painful. It is not a roving ant.

The large Red Ant.

This, though one of the largest of the African ants, does not attack man. It is a night ant, and is never seen by day; it even avoids candlelight. This ant is excessively fond of cooked meat, and also of sugar. It chooses its habitation in dark corners and hidden closets, where the light will not disturb it.

The Seasons and the Fevers of Equatorial Africa.

THE western coast of Africa has two seasons, the dry and the rainy season. Both the time and the duration of these seasons depend on the latitude and longitude of the place. That is to say, the sun rules the season; and whenever the sun is in the zenith of any given place, that spot has then its rainy season. Thus, when the rains are at their height in Senegambia, it is dry under the equator.

But the duration of the rains is also ruled somewhat by the general formation of the country. A wide open country or sandy desert has less rain and a shorter rainy season than a wooded tract, and the mountain ranges have the most rain of all. Thus, on the mountains in the interior, it rains much more and considerably longer than in the same latitude near the sea-shore.

The rainy season begins in the interior among the mountains, and gradually approaches the sea-shore; and on the other hand, the dry season commences on the sea-board and passes to the interior. There is almost a month of difference in the seasons in these countries, though situated in the same latitude, and only about one hundred and fifty miles apart.

The tract nearest the equator on both sides has the longest rainy season; and as we approach the tropics the rains become shorter and the dry season longer.

Near the equator the rains begin about the middle or end of September, and terminate in the beginning, or sometimes not till the close of May. The dry season lasts from May to September.

But on or near the equator this long rainy season is interrupted by a short period, when the rains cease. This "little dry season" lasts from a month to six weeks, and sometimes even longer. It occurs in the middle or end of December, lasting into January or the beginning of February. During this time it rains very little.

The period of the "little dry season" is, therefore, that at which the sun is nearest the southern tropic. As by the revolution of

the earth the sun becomes non-vertical near the equatorial line, the rains again begin, and grow heaviest when the sun is on the line.

Though the rains are heavy before this little dry season, they are as nothing compared with those which follow. Tornadoes then become frequent, and blow with extraordinary force during February, March, and April.

During the rainy season the streams become swollen and overflow their banks, covering the flat country which borders their courses. The bush vegetation and the grass of the prairies grow luxuriantly; and when the waters retire a heavy deposit of fertile mud remains to enrich the soil, and also to breed fevers and other diseases.

During the rainy season on the coast the prevailing wind is from the southwest.

The hottest part of the year is during the rains. Near the equator the hot months are December, January, February, March, and part of April, though on the coast the thermometer ranges no higher than from 85° to 90°. A few weeks before the dry season sets in the days and nights become cooler, and the wind veers gradually from southwest to south. After the first month of the wet season it rains mostly only at night.

The dry season is the coolest part of the year in this part of Africa, and the natives often suffer from cold. The thermometer ranges as low sometimes, early in the morning, as 64°; the sky is overcast, which is peculiar to this season; the wind on the coast, which had blown from the land in the morning and from the sea by night, now almost turns into one steady sea-breeze, which blows strongly, especially in the afternoon and evening. This is the sickly season in Africa for the negroes, who at this time suffer much from pleurisies and fevers; and it is an uncomfortable fact that it is much healthier and safer for white men to explore the rivers in the dreary rainy season than in the many ways charming dry season.

This dry season is to the negroes what summer is to us. They go more frequently on travels and trading-tours into the interior; their villages are deserted, every, body going out to the plantations; they burn the dry brush, cut down trees, and clear the ground for agricultural operations; and when the streams have fairly receded within their banks go out in search of ivory, which

is often found on the dry bottoms of recently-full lagoons, and near the recently-overflown river-banks.

As we depart from the equator and approach the tropical bounds, the rainy seasons becomes shorter and the dry seasons longer. This is owing to the influence of the sun, as before explained; and not only is the rainy season shortened by the quicker passage of the sun over the regions nearest the tropical lines, but as the sun is for half the year near one or other of the tropics, so they lack the short intermediate dry season, which is a relief to the long rains on the equator. Also, it is observed that the rains somewhat precede the sun in its course, and last, in any given place, until it has receded so far as to have no farther influence.

Near the equator, on the sea-shore, the rainy season marks its beginning by a continuous drizzle, but without much thunder during the first month. Thunder is heard rolling in the far distance, and finally the rains come on in full force with thunder and lightning. Then the sun is at the zenith for that spot. As it moves to the south or north the rains gradually grow milder; and when the sun stands over the tropic of Capricorn there occurs on the equator that intermediate dry season to which I have alluded.

It is noticeable that the equatorial dry season is not interrupted by any short rainy season to balance the "little dry season" which interrupts the long rains at the time when the sun is near the southern tropic; also that the rains, which begin as the sun returns from the north, are more continuous while the sun is to the south of the equator than when it is to the north. Doubtless the conformation of the land and the prevailing winds operate to aggravate the rains at one time and to withhold them at another. During the dry season there is little, and often no perceptible dew.

The first care of a white man coming to remain for a time on the west coast is to inure his body by degrees to the heat and to the miasms which create the fevers so fatal to the white race. On my first voyage to Africa I arrived in the hottest time of the year in the middle of the rainy season. My chief solicitude was for a while to keep clear of fever; for those who are seized on their first arrival suffer more severely and are prostrated for longer periods afterward than those who escape for a time.

I may as well state here that all white residents on the coast have the fever more or less. None escape altogether-too many die. That a good constitution, managed with prudence, will stand a good many attacks, is proved by my own experience and that of others. I suffered, in the four years over which this narrative extends, from no less than fifty attacks, and have swallowed quite fourteen ounces of quinine.

I will here relate the treatment which I found, after much experience, to answer best, both as preventive and curative; and by following which and living carefully, I was able to undergo with impunity such hardships and exposures as are too often fatal to white men on the African coast.

From the day of my arrival on the Gaboon I took quinine, morning and evening, in doses of three or four grains. This 1 have found a good preventive. When languor, headache, and aching of the limbs appeared as premonitory symptoms of fever, I increased the dose to eight or ten grains. Thus for the first month I took daily doses of quinine; and for the next month occasional doses, generally every two days. During my whole stay in Africa I took from time to time, even when in perfect health, doses of quinine or quinine wine as a prophylactic or preventive against malaria. Also I took daily, while near the coast, where such articles were, with care, attainable, either port or sherry wine, ale, or claret, in moderation. When at my dépôt for the time being, I always took care to have these articles on hand. In my journeys to the far interior I could not, however, encumber myself with such supplies. But I always provided a sufficient store of pure brandy to afford me at least a thimbleful daily. This I found an excellent remedy for cramps occasioned by bad food and indigestion, or exposure to wet and cold, and a very valuable tonic for the debilitated system of a half-starved explorer and hunter. Brandy and strong coffee, both daily, but in the greatest moderation, are, next to good habits and a good constitution, the. best safeguards against disease to the traveler in Central Africa. Some of my good friends the missionaries sometimes remonstrated with me for what they thought setting a bad example to the natives, and I am bound to say they religiously abstained themselves, except when absolutely necessary. But they do wrong; and a proof of this is, that many of them succumb to the climate and the fevers, and not one enjoys as good general health as was A A