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226
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY:
[AUGUST, 1875.
each other, 'So you thought you were going to Alexander von Humboldt : "I have often bees smelt gold!!"
struck," he says, "by seeing ants in the basaltic The gold-digging ants of the Indians are|| districts of the highlands of Mexico carrying mentioned in the writings of the Middle Ages along shining grains of hyalih, which I and in those of the Arabian authors, and the was able to pick out of the anthills." But tradition of them survived among the Turks as the supposed similarity which has led to classifylate as the sixteenth century. None of the ing as ants animals widely different from them authorities throw any doubt upon the truth of is not limited to their mode of excavating or the tradition except Strabo, who treats the throwing up the earth, for an attempt has also whole story as a fiction, and Albertus been made to extend it to their shapo and Magnus, who in quoting it adds, "sed hoc general appearance. This was done long ago by non satis est probatum per experimentum." Jacob Gronovius in his interpretation of
The advent of criticism did not at once dispel the ancient narrative, and even in our own time the belief in this fable. So late as the end of Xivrey expresses himself still more plainly to the last century we find the learned Academi- the same effect. cian Larcher, in his French translation of The hypothesis of a confusion of names had Herodotus,* cautioning his readers against hasti- to be entirely abandoned when Wilson pointed ly rejecting the narrative of the Greek historian; out that the ancient Sanskrit literature of India and two years later, in 1788, Major James itself mentions these ants. In a remarkable pasRennel, while admitting the exaggerations of sage of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the story, gives it none the less as his opinion we have an enumeration of the treasures sent by that the formidable adversaries of the Indians the Northeru tribes to king Yudhishthira, were termites or white ants.In the 19th century one of the sons of Pandu, and among them are when people at length ceased to look upon these lamps of paipilika gold, so called because it bellicose gold diggers as really ants, the opinion was collected by ants (pipilikis). Apart from began to prevail that there had simply been a this fact, it must be admitted that the burrowconfusion between the names of the ant and ing habits of foxes, jackals and hyenas hardly of some animal of larger size. In connection afford a plausible pretext for confounding them with this view, or even excluding the hypothesis with ants: it would be more naturel to make comof & confusion of names, it was also supposed parisons of this sort with certain rodents such as that a certain resemblance between the ant and marmots, but even those who adopt this solusome larger animal had given rise to the fable, tion make no attempt to ignore its weak points. or at least contributed to maintain it. The idea Thus Lassen writes: "The accounts of their of resemblance was especially grounded on the prodigious swiftness, their pursuit and destruclarger animal's mode of digging its burrow, or tion of gold-seekers and their camels, must excavating the earth with any other object. This be looked upon as purely imaginary, since animal has been variously identified with the they (marmots) are slow in their movements corsac or Tartary fox, the hyena, the jackal, the and of a gentle disposition." In the same hamster (Jus cricetus) and the marmot. The way Peschel makes the following admission : theory that the auriferous earth cast up by bur- " It has not been hitherto explained on what rowing animals guided the Indian gold-seekers, 1 grounds such remarkable speed and ferocity and originated the tradition of the gold digging should be attributed to these ants, while marante, is cariously confirmed by an observation of mots are represented as peace-loving creo
• Tome III. p. 339.
Memoir of a Map of Hindostan, Int. p. xxix. I Conf. Link, Die Orwelt und das Alterthu (Berlin, 1871-22), I. 258; Ritter, Die Erdkunde, IIL. 659; Humboldt, Kosmos, II. 176; Wahl, Erdb-schreibung von Ostindien (Hamburg, 1805-7), II. 485, 486; Wilford, Asiat. Res. XIV. 467, Kruse, Indiens alte Geschichte (Leipzig, 1856), p. 39: Heeren, Ideen aber die Politik, I. L, 340; Vigne, Travels in Kashmir, &c. II. 287 : Peschel, Der Ursprung und die Verbreitung einiger geographischen Mythen in Mittelalter,
II. 265; Larsen, Ind. Alt. I. 50, 1022; Cunningham, Ladak, p. 232.
Kosmos, II. 492. Compare the story of the diamond anthill in the case of Rubery u. Sampaon.-ED.
| Worte in den Anmerkungen su Tschuckes Ausgabe von Pomponius Mela (Leipzig, 1806), III. 3, 945.
Traditions tératologiques, pp. 265, 367. • Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 135, and Jour. R. As. Soc. (1813) vol. VII. p. 143.
Ind. Alt. L. 1022.
