Aileen Aroon, A Memoir

by William Osborn Stoddard

further than inspiring me with horrorand disgust. It _was_ very unpleasant to put down your hand for a book,and to find a scorpion beneath your fingers--a hard, scaly scorpion--andthen to hear him crack below your boot, and to be sensible of the horridodour emitted from the body: these things were _not_ pleasant. Thosescorpions which live in ships are of a brown colour, and not dangerous;it is the large green scorpion, so common in the islands of East Africa,which you must be cautious in handling, for children, it is said,frequently die from the effects of this scorpion's sting. But a muchmore loathsome and a really dangerous creature is the large greencentipede of the tropics. Of these things, the natives themselves havemore horror than of any serpent whatever, not excepting the commoncobra, and many a tale they have to tell you of people who have beenbitten, and have soon after gone raving mad, and so died. They are fromsix to twelve inches in length, and just below the neck are armed with apowerful pair of sharp claws, like the nails of a cat, with which theyhold on to their victim while they bite; and if once fairly fastenedinto the flesh, they require to be cut out. While lying at the mouth ofthe Revooma River, we had taken on board some green wood, and with itmany centipedes of a similar colour. One night, about a weekafterwards, I had turned in, and had nearly fallen asleep, when Iobserved a thing on my curtain--luckily on the outside--which veryquickly made me wide awake. It was a horrid centipede, about nineinches long. It appeared to be asleep, and had bent itself in the formof the letter S. I could see its golden-green skin by the light of mylamp, and its wee shiny eyes, that, I suppose, never close, and for themoment I was almost terror-struck. I knew if I moved he would be off,and I might get bitten another time--indeed, I never could have sleptagain in my cabin, had he not been taken. The steward came at my call;and that functionary, by dint of caution and the aid of a pair offorceps, deposited the creature in a bottle of spirits of wine, whichstood at hand always ready to receive such specimens. I have it nowbeside me; and my Scotch landlady, who seemed firmly impressed with theidea that all my diabolical-looking specimens of lizards and variousother creeping things are the productions of sundry unhappy patients,remarked concerning my centipede: "He maun hae been a sick and a soreman ye took that ane oot o', doctor."

  But a worse adventure befell an engineer of ours. He was doing duty inthe stokehole, when one of these loathsome creatures actually crept upunder his pantaloons. He was an old sailor, and a cool one, and he knewthat if he attempted to kill or knock it off, the claws would beinserted on the instant. Cautiously he rolled down his dress, andspread a handkerchief on his leg a short distance before the centipede,which was moving slowly and hesitatingly upwards. It was a moment ofintense excitement, both for those around him as well as for the manhimself. Slowly it advanced, once it stopped, then moved on again, andcrossed on to the handkerchief, and the engineer was saved; on which heimmediately got sick, and I was sent for, heard the story, and receivedthe animal, which I placed beside the other.

  More pleasant and amusing companions and cabin mates were the littleants, a whole colony of which lived in almost every available corner ofmy sanctum. Wonderfully wise they are too, and very strong, and veryproud and "clannish." Their prey is the large cockroach. If you killone of these, and place it in the centre of the cabin, parties of antstroop in from every direction--I might say, a regiment from each clan;and consequently there is a great deal of fighting and squabbling, andnot much is done, except that the cockroach is usually devoured on thespot. If, however, the dead 'roach be placed near some corner where anarmy of ants are encamped, they soon emerge from the camp in hundreds,down they march in a stream, and proceed forthwith to carry it away.Slowly up the bulkhead moves the huge brute, impelled by the unitedforce of half a thousand, and soon he is conveyed to the top. Here,generally, there is a beam to be crossed, where the whole weight of thegiant 'roach has to be sustained by these Liliputians, with their headsdownward; and more difficult still is the rounding of the corner. Veryoften, the ants here make a most egregious mistake; while hundreds arehauling away at each leg, probably a large number get on top of the'roach, and begin tugging away with all their might, and consequentlytheir burden tumbles to the deck; but the second time he is taken up,this mistake is not made. These creatures send out regular spies, whichreturn to report when they have found anything worth taking toheadquarters; then the foraging-party goes out, and it is quite a sightto see the long serpentine line, three or four deep, streaming down thebulkhead and over the deck, and apparently having no end. They nevermarch straight before them; their course is always wavy; and it is allthe more strange that those coming up behind should take exactly thesame course, so that the real shape of the line of march never changes.Perhaps this is effected by the officer-ants, which you may see, onehere, one there, all along the line. By the officer-ants I mean alarge-sized ant (nearly double), that walks along by the side of themarching army, like ants in authority. They are black (the common antbeing brown), and very important, too, they look, and are no doubtdeeply impressed by the responsibility of their situation and duties,running hither and thither--first back, then to the side, and sometimesstopping for an instant with another officer, as if to give or receiveorders, and then hurrying away again. These are the ants, I have nodoubt, that are in command, and also act as engineers and scouts, foryou can always see one or two of them running about, just before themain body comes on--probably placing signal-staffs, and otherwisedetermining the line of march. They seem very energetic officers too,and allow no obstacle to come in their way, for I have often known theline of march to lie up one side of my white pants, over my knees, anddown the other. I sat thus once till a whole army passed over me--avery large army it was too, and mightily tried my patience. When therear-guard had passed over, I got up and walked away, which must haveconsiderably damaged the calculations of the engineers on their marchback.

  Of the many species of flies found in my cabin, I shall merely mentiontwo--namely, the silly fly--which is about the size of a pin-head, andfurnished with two high wings like the sails of a Chinese junk; theycome on board with the bananas, and merit the appellation of _silly_from the curious habit they have of running about with their noses down,as if earnestly looking for something which they cannot find; they run alittle way, stop, change their direction, and run a little further, stopagain, and so on, _ad infinitum_, in a manner quite amusing to any onewho has time to look at and observe them--and the hammer-legged fly (the_Foenus_ of naturalists), which possesses two long hammer-like legs,that stick out behind, and have a very curious appearance. This fly hasbeen accused of biting, but I have never found him guilty. He seems tobe continually suffering from a chronic stage of shaking-palsy.Wherever he alights--which is as often on your nose as anywhere else--hestands for a few seconds shaking in a manner which is quite distressingto behold, then flies away, with his two hammers behind him, to alightand shake on some other place--most likely your neighbour's nose. Itseems to me, indeed, that flies have a penchant for one's nose.Nothing, too, is more annoying than those same house-flies in warmcountries. Suppose one alights on the extreme end of your nasalapparatus, you of course drive him off; he describes two circles in theair, and alights again on the same spot; and this you may do fiftytimes, and at the fifty-first time, back he comes with a saucy hum-m,and takes his seat again, just as if your nose was made for him to go toroost upon, and for no other purpose at all; so that you are eitherobliged to sit and smile complacently with a fly on the end of yourproboscis, or, if you are clever and supple-jointed, follow him allround the room till you have killed him; then, probably, back you comewith a face beaming with gratification, and sit down to your book again,when bum-m-m! there is your friend once more, and you have killed thewrong fly.

  In an hospital, nothing is more annoying than these flies; sleep by dayis sometimes entirely out of the question, unless the patient covers hisface, which is by no means agreeable on a hot day. Mosquitoes, too, aretroublesome customers to a stranger, for they seem to prefer the bloodof a
stranger to that of any one else. The mosquito is a beautiful,feathery-horned midge, with long airy legs, and a body and wings thattremble with their very fineness and grace. The head and shoulders arebent downward at almost a right angle, as if the creature had fallen onits head and broken its back; but, for all its beauty, the mosquito is ahypocritical little scoundrel, who comes singing around you, apparentlyso much at his ease, and looking so innocent and gentle, that one wouldimagine butter would hardly melt in his naughty little mouth. Healights upon your skin with such a light and fairy tread, inserts histube, and sucks your blood so cleverly, that the mischief is done longbefore you are aware, and he is off again singing as merrily as ever.Probably, if you look about the curtain, you may presently find himgorged with your blood, and hardly able to fly--an unhappy little midgenow, very sick, and with all his pride fallen; so you catch and