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One strand of copper wire there is, through the Congo region, placed there by order of the late King of Belgium. To string it was probably the most adventurous piece of work in the history of telephone linemen. There was one seven hundred and fifty mile stretch of the central jungle. There were white ants that ate the wooden poles, and wild elephants that pulled up the iron poles.
One of the men was upset while working in the swift water, and his face was cut against the stones. Lyra and Kermit did the actual work with the camaradas. Kermit, dressed substantially like the camaradas themselves, worked in the water, and, as the overhanging branches were thronged with crowds of biting and stinging ants, he was marked and blistered over his whole body.
After these two experiments, first with the torrent of water which washes away all traces of smell from the ground and then with the mint which changes the smell, I think that we are no longer at liberty to quote scent as the guide of the Ants that return to the nest by the road which they took at starting. Further tests will tell us more about it.
There were great stone buildings very solidly made, with high chimneys which seemed to stream with smoke; we could see men, as small as ants, moving in and out of the buildings; it seemed like a place of manufacture, with a busy life of its own. But here I suddenly felt that I could go no further, but must return.
The architects of some were red ants, of others black ants; and others, which were on the whole the largest, had been built by the white ants, the termites. The latter were not infrequently taller than a horseman's head. That evening round the camp-fire Colonel Rondon happened to mention how the brother of one of the soldiers with us a Parecis Indian had been killed by a jararaca snake.
Bad as the days were, the nights were worse; for myriads of ants followed swarms of flies, and black, stifling clouds followed a blazing sun all of which is bearable to, and passes after a time unnoticed by a man in good health. But poor fellows, worn to skeletons by unending work and the poorest of food, unable to move from sickness, are worried almost past endurance by the insects and heat.
Arrived there, four stout stakes are driven deeply into the ground at a proper distance apart round the nest, stout raw-hide thongs are attached to the victim's wrists and ankles, and the whole of his naked body is then carefully anointed with honey, after which he is thrown to the ground and stretched out on his back on the top of the ants' nest, and there immovably bound to the four stakes.
It is not a question of brutally seizing a prey to be devoured immediately. The captured animal must be carefully managed, carried away alive and in such a condition that it has not yet known a free life, and can accustom itself to new conditions. When the Polyergus or Amazon ants desire to increase their band of slaves, one first remarks extreme excitement in the neighbourhood of the nest.
"You should be patient. Remember Job was patient, and he was afflicted with sore boils." "I don't care," says Pa, as he chased the ants out of his drawers, "Job never had ants in his liver pad. If he had he would have swore the shingles off a barn. Here you," says Pa, speaking to me, "you head off them ants running under the bureau.
For instance, ants may be seen vainly trying to drag an object transversely to their course, which could be easily drawn longitudinally; though after a time they generally act in a wiser manner, M. Fabre states that a Sphex an insect belonging to the same highly-endowed order with ants stocks its nest with paralysed grass-hoppers, which are invariably dragged into the burrow by their antennae.
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