Of other species of worms I shall have occasion to speak further on; but with the white and black ants I myself waged repeatedly a relentless but unsuccessful war during my residence in the country. Already, the second day of my stay in Bákadá, I observed that the white ant (_termes fatalis_) was threatening my couch, which I had spread upon a very coarse mat, or “síggedí” as the Kanúri, “lába” as the Bagírmi people call it, made of the thickest reed, with total destruction. I therefore, for want of a better protection, contrived an expedient which I thought would guarantee my berth against the further attacks of those cruel intruders, placing my couch upon three very large poles; but I soon had cause to discover that those ferocious insects were not to be deterred by such means, for two days afterwards, I found that they had not only built their entrenchments along the poles, and reached the top, but had eaten through both the coarse mats, finished a large piece of my Stambúli carpet, and destroyed several other articles. And during my further stay here I had the greatest trouble in preventing these insects from destroying all my things; for their voracity and destructive powers seem to increase towards the beginning of the rainy season, which was fast setting in. The weather was exceedingly sultry, and we had the first thunder-storm on the 3rd of April; and from that time we experienced a tornado almost every day, although in general there was not much rain. The village itself, of course, afforded very little entertainment. In former times it had been nothing but a slave or farming village, or “yóweó,” while the masters of the field-hands resided at another place called Kústiya; and it was only a few years previously that they had taken up their residence at this place; nevertheless even at present it is nothing better than a farming village, grain being the only produce of the place, while the inhabitants do not possess a single cow, so that milk and butter are great luxuries, and even a fowl quite out of the question. But as for grain, Bákadá is not without importance; on the contrary, it is one of the chief corn-growing places in the country, especially for sorghum (“ngáberí,” or, as they call it, “wá”), while millet (“chéngo”) is not so extensively grown. A market is held every Sunday, near the western hamlet; but it is very miserable indeed, and it was all the worse for me, as the people refused to accept in payment any of those small articles of which I was still possessed, all my property at the time consisting of 3000 shells—that is to say, little more than a Spanish dollar,—a small assortment of beads, and a few looking-glasses, but principally needles, while here also the people required what I had not, namely, the cotton strips which I have mentioned above. The only luxury offered for sale in the market was a miserable lean sheep; and, as a representative of foreign civilization, there was half a sheet of common paper.