The brutish hyæna was not so to be deterred. I shot one of them dead on the night of the 31st of January, and, on the 2d of February, I fired at another so near, that I was confident of killing him. Whether the balls had fallen out, or that I had really missed him with the first barrel, I know not, but he gave a snarl and a kind of bark upon the first shot, advancing directly upon me as if unhurt. The second shot, however, took place, and laid him without motion on the ground. Yasine and his men killed another with a pike; and such was their determined coolness, that they stalked round about us with the familiarity of a dog, or any other domestic animal brought up with man. But we were still more incommoded by a lesser animal, a large, black ant, little less than an inch long, which, coming out from under the ground, demolished our carpets, which they cut all into shreds, and part of the lining of our tent likewise, and every bag or sack they could find. We had first seen them in great numbers at Angari, but here they were intolerable. Their bite causes a considerable inflammation, and the pain is greater than that which arises from the bite of a scorpion; they are called _gundan_. On the 1st of February the Shum sent his people to value, as he said, our merchandise, that we might pay custom. Many of the Moors, in our caravan, had left us to go a near way to Hauza. We had at most five or six asses, including those belonging to Yasine. I humoured them so far as to open the cases where were the telescopes and quadrant, or, indeed, rather shewed them open, as they were not shut from the observation I had been making. They could only wonder at things they had never before seen.