HAMMOCK NIGHTS 225 
insistent screaming of a cicada which seemed to 
have gone mad in the heat, when a low rustling 
caught my ear—a sound of moving leaves with- 
out wind; the voice of a breeze in the midst of 
breathless heat. There was in it something sin- 
ister and foreboding. I leaned over the edge of 
my hammock, and saw coming toward me, in a 
broad, irregular front, a great army of ants, 
battalion after battalion of them flowing like 
a sea of living motes over twigs and leaves and 
stems. I knew the danger and I half sat up, 
prepared to roll out and walk to one side. Then 
I gaged my supporting strands; tested them un- 
til they vibrated and hummed, and lay back, 
watching, to see what would come about. I 
knew that no creature in the world could stay 
in the path of this horde and live. To kill an 
insect or a great bird would require only a few 
minutes, and the death of a jaguar or a tapir 
would mean only a few more. Against this at- 
tack, claws, teeth, poison-fangs would be idle 
Weapons. 
In the van fled a cloud of terrified insects— 
those gifted with flight to wing their way far off, 
while the humbler ones went running headlong, 
their legs, four, six, or a hundred, making the 
