136 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



(Ecodoma, but the splendid civilization of the chil- 

 dren of the sun, albeit it bore on the face of it the 

 impress of unchangeableness and needless dura- 

 tion, has vanished utterly from the earth. 



To return from this digression. The nest I 

 have discovered is more populous than London, 

 and there are several roads diverging from it, 

 each one four or five inches wide, and winding 

 away hundreds of yards through the bushes. 

 Never was any thoroughfare in a great city fuller 

 of busy hurrying people than one of these roads. 

 Sitting beside one, just where it wound over the 

 soft yellow sand, I grew tired of watching the 

 endless procession of little toilers, each one carry- 

 ing a leaf in his jaws ; and very soon there came 

 into my ear a whisper from somebody 



Who finds some mischief still 

 For idle hands to do. 



It is always pleasant to have even a hypothet- 

 ical somebody on whom to shuffle the responsibil- 

 ity of our evil actions. Warning my conscience 

 that I am only going to try a scientific experiment, 

 one not nearly so cruel as many in which the pious 

 Spallanzani took great delight, I scoop a deep pit 

 in the sand; and the ants, keeping on their way 

 with their usual blind, stupid sagacity, tumble 

 pell-mell over each other into it. On, on they 

 come, in scores and in hundreds, like an endless 

 flock of sheep jumping down a pit into which tk 



