Part 29 (1/2)

”Ant-hills!” echoed Benedict, suddenly aroused into a state of excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: One after another, the whole party made their way inside]

”No doubt of it, Mr. Benedict.” replied d.i.c.k; ”they are ant-hills twelve feet high at least: and I hope we shall be able to get into them.”

”Twelve feet!” the naturalist repeated; ”they must be those of the termites, the white ants; there is no other insect that could make them. Wonderful architects are the termites.”

”Termites, or whatever they are, they will have to turn out for us,” said d.i.c.k.

”But they will eat us up!” objected Benedict.

”I can't help that,” retorted d.i.c.k; ”go we must, and go at once.”

”But stop a moment,” continued the provoking naturalist; ”stop, and tell me: I can't be wrong: I always thought that white ants could never be found elsewhere than in Africa.”

”Come along, sir, I say; come along, quick!” shouted d.i.c.k, terrified lest Mrs. Weldon should have overheard him.

They hurried on. A wind had risen; large spattering drops were now beginning to fall more heavily on the ground and in a few minutes it would be impossible to stand against the advancing tempest. The nearest of the acc.u.mulation of ant-hills was reached in time, and however dangerous their occupants might be, it was decided either to expel them, or to share their quarters. Each cone was formed of a kind of reddish clay, and had a single opening at its base. Hercules took his hatchet, and quickly enlarged the aperture till it would admit his own huge body. Not an ant made its appearance. Cousin Benedict expressed his extreme surprise. But the structure unquestionably was empty, and one after another the whole party made their way inside.

The rain by this time was descending in terrific torrents, strong enough to extinguish, one would think, the most violent explosions of the electric fluid. But the travellers were secure in their shelter, and had nothing to fear for the present; their tenement was of greater stability than a tent or a native hut. It was one of those marvellous structures erected by little insects, which to Cameron appeared even more wonderful than the upraising of the Egyptian pyramids by human hands. To use his own comparison, it might be likened to the construction of a Mount Everest, the loftiest of the Himalayan peaks, by the united labour of a nation.

CHAPTER V.

WHITE ANTS.

The storm had now burst in full fury, and fortunate it was that a refuge had been found. The rain did not fall in separate drops as in temperate zones, but descended like the waters of a cataract, in one solid and compact ma.s.s, in a way that could only suggest the outpour of some vast aerial basin containing the waters of an entire ocean. Contrary, too, to the storms of higher lat.i.tudes, of which the duration seems ordinarily to be in inverse ratio to their violence, these African tempests, whatever their magnitude, often last for whole days, furrowing the soil into deep ravines, changing plains to lakes and brooks to torrents, and causing rivers to overflow and cover vast districts with their inundations. It is hard to understand whence such volumes of vapour and electric fluid can acc.u.mulate. The earth, upon these occasions, might almost seem to be carried back to the remote period which has been called ”the diluvian age.”

Happily, the walls of the ant-hill were very thick; no beaver-hut formed of pounded earth could be more perfectly water-tight, and a torrent might have pa.s.sed over it without a particle of moisture making its way through its substance.

As soon as the party had taken possession of the tenement, a lantern was lighted, and they proceeded to examine the interior. The cone, which was about twelve feet high inside, was eleven feet wide at the base, gradually narrowing to a sugar-loaf top. The walls and part.i.tions between the tiers of cells were nowhere less than a foot thick throughout.

These wonderful erections, the result of the combined labour of innumerable insects, are by no means uncommon in the heart of Africa. Smeathman, a Dutch traveller of the last century, has recorded how he and four companions all at one time occupied the summit of one of them in Lounde. Livingstone noticed some made of red clay, of which the height varied from fifteen to twenty feet; and in Nyangwe, Cameron several times mistook one of these colonies for a native camp pitched upon the plain. He described some of these strange edifices as being flanked with small spires, giving them the appearance of a cathedral-dome.

The reddish clay of which the ant-hill was composed could leave no doubt upon the mind of a naturalist that it had been formed by the species known as ”termes bellicosus;” had it been made of grey or black alluvial soil, it might have been attributed to the ”termes mordax” or ”termes atrox,” formidable names that must awaken anything but pleasure in the minds of all but enthusiast entomologists.

In the centre was an open s.p.a.ce, surrounded by roomy compartments, ranged one upon another, like the berths of a s.h.i.+p's cabin, and lined with the millions of cells that had been occupied by the ants. This central s.p.a.ce was inadequate to hold the whole party that had now made their hurried resort to it, but as each of the compartments was sufficiently capacious to admit one person to occupy it in a sitting posture, Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict were exalted to the upper tier, Austin, Bat, and Actaeon occupied the next story, whilst Tom and Hercules, and d.i.c.k Sands himself remained below.

d.i.c.k soon found that the soil beneath his feet was beginning to get damp, and insisted upon having some of the dry clay spread over it from the base of the cone.

”It is a long time,” he said, ”since we have slept with a roof over our heads; and I am anxious to make our refuge as secure as possible. It may be that we shall have to

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened.]

stay here for a whole day or more; on the first opportunity I shall go and explore; it may turn out that we are near the stream we are seeking; and perhaps we shall have to build a raft before we start again.”

Under his direction, therefore, Hercules took his hatchet, and proceeded to break down the lowest range of cells and to spread the dry, brittle clay of which they were composed a good foot thick over the damp floor, taking care not in any way to block up the aperture by which the fresh air penetrated into the interior.

It was indeed fortunate that the termites had abandoned their home; had it swarmed with its mult.i.tudes of voracious Neuroptera, the ant-hill would have been utterly untenable for human beings. Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened, and he was intensely interested in the question of the evacuation, so that he proceeded at once to investigate, if he could, whether the emigration had been recent or otherwise. He took the lantern, and as the result of his scrutiny he soon discovered in a recess what he described as the termites' ”storehouse,” or the place where the indefatigable insects keep their provisions. It was a large cavity, not far from the royal cell, which, together with the cells for the reception of the young larvae, had been destroyed by Hercules in the course of his flooring operations. Out of this receptacle Benedict drew a considerable quant.i.ty of gum and vegetable juices, all in a state so liquid as to demonstrate that they had been deposited there quite recently.

”They have only just gone,” he exclaimed, with an air of authority, as if he imagined that some one was about to challenge his a.s.sertion.