SONG OF THE FLEA

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 11

SONG OF THE FLEA

ABYSSINIA'S MONSTER.

INVINCIBLE IN BATTLE. LION OF JTTDAH STALWART. (By LAURENCE STAELINGS.) ADDIS ABABA, November. There will be after the ItaloEthiopian affair many a dissertation on various crafts and hardships of such a weird land as Ethiopia. Yet I doubt that the solid treatise this country most deserves will be written. I refer to a profound essay on the character and habits of fleas. The native flea of the plateau is by all odds the most savage of insects. He seems to gain truculency as the escarpments give way to the plains, rising to full savagery only on the crest of the plateau in such gatherings of mud huts and squalor as Addie Ababa, Addis Alem and Harrar. He does not do his best work, the Ethiopian flea, at even such comparatively low altitudes as Dire-Dawa, which boasts a mere four thousand feet. In fact, DireDawan fleas are trivial little beasts, and have not thrived in that city, despite the presence of three Greek and one Russian hotels.

■ At Addis Ababa the flea rises to his full stature. He will unhesitatingly attack in daylight, and the powers of his hind legs are prodigious. Moreover, he has a profound effect upon the skin, a good solid whack from his jaws leaving an ulcer which may be regarded as permanent, though present tables of experience only go back a matter of four months, the no interest in statistics, and being so long accustomed to fleas that, it is said, they do not feel the bite of anything less than a fully mature flea of the female sex which has' been four years in residence in a Greek hotel. This little animal, when afforded such advantages, is invincible. How to Counter-attack. One must not think that correspondents have been idle, paraphrasing David Harum to the extent of concluding that "a reasonable amount of fleas is good for a correspondent; it keeps him from brooding—on not being a dog." Two men, under my observation, have been invalided out of the country because of fleas; and one of them lost only after a tough battle. Only wlien he became unable, because of flea-bites, to soak his clothing with flea-powder, did he give up the battle. The other, a man of superb intellectual attainments, devised a technique which has' found much favour among those of us who, because of various duties, are forced to travel much around the country.

We hardened ones, of course, laugh at mere medical fallacies such as those of bathing every hour in strong carbolic soap or of sewing bags of flea-powder into underclothing, or the wearing of rubber suits. It is known that nothing, once an Abyssinian flea has moved into a Greek hotel, can get him out again. The only defence against fleas is a strong offence; one must be prepared to contest their right to a pound of flesh— W ell, eighteen ounces for Addis-er (The New Flower.)

For a full night's rest—about throe and a half to four hours —the wisest campaigner will take to bed with-him one electric flashlight, one bar of laundry soap and a saucer half-full of water. The soap should be soaked in the saucer about 15 minutes before retiring, acquiring a soft u'uder-surface. Then, on the instant of attack, when one feels the poisonous fangs sinking deep, a man of agility and co-ordination can flash the lamp," seize the soap, strike the bitten hip forcibly and seriously incapacitate the flea. ' One $lust Burn the Carpet. If the flea is a high plateau flea, with a smattering of Greek cooking in his veins, it will not be possible to prevent his escape. He can pull himself free of the soap and leap to safety —indeed, some of the plateau tigers could vault from a Bessemer furnace —but the rough treatment he receives, the inconvenience of soap in his eyes, and, above all, the feeling of having been soaped, which .is anathema to the Greek influence, will render the fellow hors de combat for upwards of half an' hour. As a general rule, out of wide experience, I agree with the correspondent of Addis Ababa that their flea is most stalwart of the Lion of Judah's fleas.

However, I am inclined to believe with the French that the flea of Harrar, in the centre of the town, is probably a better cutter, a finer jumper and a more infectious flea. Once they have moved into one's room in Harrar—of course, they have been in some rooms since General Makonnen drove the Egyptians out, lock, stock and barrel, leaving nothing behind them but trauchoma flies— as I say, once they have taken possession in Harrar, there is only one thing to do. One must burn the hotel carpet. It causes considerable pain to the Greek who will inevitably run the pension, though whether or not a passage through a burning carpet will cause pain to a centre-of-town Harrar flea is still open to discussion. It has been calculated that an elephant, had he relatively the strength in his hind legs .that a Harrar flea possesses, could jump from Singapore to Panama and back, with enough left over to return and make a handrail.

He Broke the Bulb. I have seen only one living Harrar flea. Occasionally one finds them dead, curled in corners after fatal attacks o*f dropsy, but the only one captured alive was caught with bare hands by the chief prosecutor of the Province of Harrar. He caught it off the judge's neck, using a fine body drive ending in a flying tackle. While it momentarily knocked out the judge, tho flea was fairly caught by the prosecutor. I committed the faux pas of dashing across the Palace tribunal to inspect a living Harrar flea. However, the old boy was too much for the prosecutor, who, feeling the dreadful buzz-saw sink into his palm, opened his fingers in agony. A great black shape jumped over my head, sailing like a pterodactyl with the greatest of ease, back to my room in the Greek pension, to snuggle in the new carpet the Greek had just placed on my floor. That night he broke the bulb iii my flashlight.—X.A.ZST.A.