WHITE ANTS. 261 



feet perpendicular among the gravel, whenc^e the workers 

 cull the finer parts, which, being kneaded up in their 

 mouths to the consistence of mortar, become that solid 

 clay or stone of which their hills and all their buildings, 

 except their nurseries, are composed. Other galleries again 

 ascend, and lead out horizontally on every side, and are 

 carried under ground near to the surface a vast distance : 

 for if all the nests are destroyed within a hundred yards of 

 a house, the inhabitants of those which are left unmolested 

 farther off, will still carry on their subterraneous galleries, 

 and, invading it by sap and mine, do great mischief to the 

 goods and merchandises contained in it. 



It seems there is a degree of necessity for the galleries 

 under the hills being thus large, since they are the great 

 thoroughfares for all the labourers and soldiers going 

 forth or returning, whether fetching clay, wood, w^ater, 

 or provisions ; and they are certainly well calculated for 

 the purposes to wdiich they are applied by the spiral slo^^e 

 which is given them ; for if they were perpendicular, 

 the labourers would not be able to carry on their building 

 with so much facility, as they ascend a perpendicular with 

 great difficulty, and the soldiers can scarcely do it at all. 

 It is on this account that sometimes a road like a ledge is 

 made on the perpendicular side of any part of the building 

 within their hill, which is flat on the upper surface and 

 half an inch wide, and ascends gradually like a staircase, 

 or like those winding roads which are cut on the sides of 

 hills and mountains, that would otherwise be inaccessible ; 

 by which and similar contrivances they travel with great 

 facility to every interior part. 



This, too, is probably the cause of their building a 

 kind of bridge of one great arch, which answers the pur- 

 pose of a flight of stairs from the floor of the area, to 

 some opening on the side of one of the columns that sup- 

 port the great arches. This contrivance must shorten 

 the distance exceedingly to those labourers who have the 

 eggs to carry from the royal chamber to some of the 

 upper nurseries, which in some hills would be four or five 

 feet in the straightest line, and much more if carried 



