It was lonely and desolate work, for with the exception of a few ostriches there was not a single living creature to be seen on all the vast expanse of sandy plain.

Evidently it was too dry for game, and with the exception of a deadly-looking cobra or two we saw no reptiles.

One insect, however, we found abundant, and that was the common or house fly.

There they came, "not as single spies, but in battalions," as I think the Old Testament[1] says somewhere.

He is an extraordinary insect is the house fly.