SECOND EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA 109 



softening of putrefaction, which is well established in two days, 

 solacing themselves meantime with an eye or the inside of the 

 mouth if they can get at it. 



In this neighbourhood and between Lake Kamadou and 

 the Zambesi the works of the ants are marvellous. One variety 

 builds a dome-shaped nest, which makes a first-rate oven, for it 

 is hollow inside, and by smoking out the inhabitants and 

 lighting a fire it becomes thoroughly heated, and bakes well. 

 So much has been written about the white ant that it needs no 

 description from me ; but though I was in India for years I 

 never remember seeing their earthworks half the size they are 

 in Africa, where I have come across them ten to twelve feet high, 

 and so large and firm that I have ridden about the roofs, in 

 and out amongst the pinnacles and minarets, which give them 

 an appearance, let us say, of Milan Cathedral on a small 

 scale ! And all this is the work of blind architects, who are 

 obliged to protect themselves from the sun and from enemies 

 by a covered way they build between their nests and any of 

 the trees around, which may have dead wood or branches. 

 How their instinct leads them my reason cannot tell, for they 

 are eyeless. Where there are no chairs or stools, one sits and 

 lies upon the earth, and sees much of the kingdoms and com- 

 munities of the insect world. Here is the ant-lion lurking 

 at the bottom of his inverted cone of a hole, ambushed and 

 ready to spring upon the incautious insect that, stepping on 

 the edge of his trap, is carried to the bottom by the loose, 

 unstable grains of sand ; here the hard-biting, plunger- 

 looking red ant, whose holes have been stopped when the 

 breakfast was prepared and the surface swept for the skins on 

 which we lie. Up he comes, having wired his way through 

 his closed front door, sits on end, strokes what would be 

 his moustache if he had any, and then, with a number of his 

 fellow-sufferers and friends, walks straight to the nest of a 

 large black species of his own family, and each throwing one 

 of the blacks about twice his own size over his back, away 

 they go to their own holes, and, pointing out the work to be 



