IDLE DAYS 137 



crazy bell-wether has led the way: soon the hun- 

 dreds have swelled to thousands, and the yawning 

 gulf begins to fill with an inky mass of wriggling, 

 biting, struggling ants. Every falling leaf -cutter 

 carries down a few grains of treacherous sand 

 with it, making the descent easier, and soon the pit 

 is full to overflowing. In five minutes more they 

 will all be out again at their accustomed labors, 

 just a little sore about the legs, perhaps, where 

 they have bitten one another, but no worse for 

 their tumble, and all that will remain of the dread- 

 ful cavern will be a slight depression in the soil. 

 Satisfied with the result, I resume my solitary 

 ramble, and by-and-by coming upon a fine Escan- 

 dalosa bush I resolve to add incendiarism to my 

 list of misdeeds. It might appear strange that a 

 bush should be called Escandalosa, which means 

 simply Scandalous, or, to prevent mistakes, which 

 simply means Scandalous ; but this is one of those 

 quaint names the Argentine peasants have be- 

 stowed on some of their curious plants dry love, 

 the devil's snuff-box, bashful weed, and many 

 others. The Escandalosa is a wide-spreading 

 shrub, three to five feet high, thickly clothed with 

 prickly leaves, and covered all the year round 

 with large pale-yellow immortal flowers; and the 

 curious thing about the plant is that when touched 

 with fire it blazes up like a pile of wood shavings, 

 and is immediately consumed to ashes with a mar- 

 velous noise of hissing and crackling. And thus 



