190 



THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



invent the history of white ants have offered no clue, so far 



as I know, to one great mystery which attends their pro- 



i 



ceedings. Where do they find water? Starting from the 

 ground at a place where you might dig fifty feet without 

 reaching water, they will travel through the foundations 

 and between the stones of the wall away into the upper 

 storey of your house, and then, finding their road barred, 

 perhaps, by a broad stone, they will emerge and build a 

 covered way to protect their march, until they reach a soft 

 place where they can enter the wall again. Now, clay can- 

 not be kneaded or mortar mixed without moisture, and 

 they manage to carry on these operations in the second 

 storey of a house with the hygrometer at zero, and all your 

 postage stamps curling into telescopes. Their heads are 

 certainly large and red, like water-chatties, but surely they 

 do not carry water in their heads ! 



White ants will not eat anything that has life in it. It is 

 proof enough of this that the earth to-day is clothed with 

 verdure, and we ourselves survive. In fairness, however, 

 it should be stated that the malee holds a contrary opinion. 

 He maintains that plants of his planting are never eaten by 

 white ants because they have died, but die because they are 

 eaten by white ants. 



