(Enter: White Ants.)

QueenA. Silence, dear children, I have heard a song,

To which attend, it won't detain you long.
(Song)

Some log meranti must be found
Left by some cooly on the ground,
They often leave such logs around,
Where there's no clever master.
Beneath the bark we'll work away
Nor resting night nor resting day,
So that the queen her eggs may lay,
Which bring estates disaster.
98



Chorus. Oh, oh! the white ant cure, I'm very sure, is

premature
And no estate can it secure from our unstemmed
advances.
Oh give me just a peaty soil,
Where roots lie high, with little toil.
We'll tunnel through them to despoil
The juices of the rubber.
The planter never seems to know
How to distinguish friend or foe.
He limes the trees and makes a show,
On which our clay we slubber.
Chorus. Oh, oh ! the white ant cure etc.
We hear a pamphlet is for sale,

Which makes our cheeks with fear turn pale.
Whereof the readers never fail

To spot our mode of working.
In diagrams marked A. and B.
Our course you very clearly see

Approaching box or stump or tree,

Where we're discovered lurking.
■Chorus. Oh, oh ! the white ant cure etc.,

! Hevea you're doomed to die,
Unless the planter's very fly,
And reads the brochures written by
The Board of Agriculture.
And takes them all at once to heart
And cuts out drains a chain apart
And makes our little maries smart
With Arsenic and Sulphur.
Chorus. Oh, oh ! the white ant cure etc.
Queen A. Now what's the news of our antique dominion ?

King A. Well dear,

Queen A. You don't suppose I asked for your opinion.
