Amongst the insects was the silk-spider, a large arachnid of
sulphur-yellow tint, with three black transverse bars. It weaves no web,
but spins a thread of the strongest texture and the richest golden hue. I
had sent from Fernando Po several pounds of this fine silk, intending to
experiment upon it in a veil or lace shawl; and afterwards I learned that
the Empress Eugenie had a dress made of it, which cost a fabulous number
of francs. Bacon and other old writers talk of 'spider's silk' like
gathering moonbeams. [Footnote: The _Ananse_ or _Agya ananse_ (father
spider), as the Oji-speaking peoples call the insect, is with them either
a creator of man (corresponding so far with the scarabeus in the Nile
valley) or a representative of the evil principle. Bosman (Letter xvii.),
describing a 'great hideous hairy species,' says, 'The negroes call this
spider _ananse_, and believe that the first men were made by that
creature; and, notwithstanding some of them by conversation with the
Europeans are better informed, there are yet a great number that remain of
that opinion, out of which folly they are not to be reasoned.' The people
have a number of fables called _Anansesem_, such as _Spider and Spiderson
and the Three Ghosts_; in these spider-stories the insect, like the fox
with us, is the most intelligent of animals (the late Rev.
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