Dionisio Carli, of Piacenza, a missionary in Congo, lying sick at that place, was awakened one night by his monkey leaping on his head, and almost at the same time by his Blacks crying out, much to his surprise, "Out! Out! Father!" Thoroughly awake now, Carli asked them what was the matter? "The Ants," they cried, "are broke out, and there is no time to be lost!" Not being able to stir, he bid them carry him into the garden, which they did, four of them lifting him upon his straw bed; and yet though very quick about it, the Ants had already commenced crawling up his legs. After shaking them off their master, the Blacks took straw and fired it on the floor of four rooms, where these insects by this time were over half a foot thick. The pests being thus destroyed, Carli was conveyed back to his chamber, where he found the stench so great from the burnt bodies, that he was forced, he says, to hold his _monkey_ close to his nose!
These Ants, Carli relates, ate up every living object within their reach; and of one cow, which was accidentally left over night in the stable through which they passed, nothing but the bones were found the next morning.[528] We need not wonder at this, if we believe what Bosman has said of the Black-ants of Guinea, which were so surprisingly rapacious that no animal could stand before them. He relates an instance where they reduced for him one of his live sheep in one night to a perfect skeleton, and that so nicely that it surpassed the skill of the best anatomists.[529] Du Chaillu says the elephant and gorilla fly before the attack of the Bashikouay-ants, and the black men run for their lives. Many a time has he himself, he says, been awakened out of a sleep, and obliged to rush out of his hut and into the water to save his life![530] The Driver-ants[531] of Western Africa, _A. nomma arcens_, have been known to kill the _Python natalensis_, the largest serpent of that part of the world.[532]
Col. St. Clair, after a visit by a species of small Red-ants, makes mention of the following instance, among others, of their singular destructiveness: "I next discovered that a little pet deer, which I had purchased from a negro, was extremely ill. I could not discover the cause of its malady, until, placing it on its legs, I observed that it would not let one foot touch the ground, and, on examining it, I found, to my grief, that the Red-ants had absolutely eaten a hole into the bone. The poor little animal pined all that day and died in the evening."[533]