282 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



September, The aiits are caught in rather an ingenious manner. A light 

 ^^'^^- frame-work of cane or twigs is built over a large ant-hill, and 

 covered with leaves cleverly fastened together by sticking the 

 midrib of each into the one above it. A very small entrance 

 is left open at the bottom, and under this is dug a round hole 

 a foot in diameter and two feet deep. When the winged ants- 

 come out of the hill ready to migrate, they all make for this 

 entrance and hustle each other into the hole, where they lose 

 their wings, and are unable to get out. In the morning they 

 are collected by the natives, who smoke them over slow lires to 

 preserve them. 



Tlie country was wonderfully full of oil -palms, which in 

 some places grew in extraordinary abundance. 



After two or three hours' marching each day, Tipo-tipo's 

 man declared tliat the next camping-place was too far away to 

 be reached until late, and therefore we had better stay \vhere 

 we were. His orders were merely to accomj)auy me for ten 

 days, and not to any specified place ; and it was, of course, to 

 his advantage to make a day's march as short as possible. 



Each of the affluents of the Lomami with which the country 

 was intersected had liollowed out for itself a small deej) valley 

 in the nearly level plateau we were traversing, and, shaded by 

 fine timber, their dark depths were rich in the most beautiful 

 mosses and ferns it is possible to imagine. Sometimes one side 

 of a valley was steep and cliff-like, exposing the various strata ; 

 at the top, a shallow layer of vegetable mold, then about four- 

 teen feet of sand and from fifty to seventy feet of water-worn 

 pebbles of granite and quartz resting on the solid granite. 

 The pebbles were occasionally divided into two parts by a stra- 

 tum of soft yellowish sandstone of ten or twelve feet ; but all 

 lay level except the granite, whicli was very irregular. 



Two days after Tipo-tipo's man left us, we arrived at a vil- 

 lage named Kifuma, from which the people bolted on our ap- 

 proach; but, on the peacefulness of our intentions becoming 

 apparent, the chief came to me, and even offered his hut — a de- 

 lightfully clean place — for my use. It was ten feet square, and 

 a large portion of the space was occupied by a bed-place made 

 of split midribs of the raphia palm. 



The two doors — but especially the front one — were wonder- 



