of the ants was as incessant as the patter of rain ; 

 a barefooted insert host, a rabble of sans culottes, 

 and the sound of their marching feet reached my 

 listening ears, as it were in the clouds above them. 



On the fourth day the slavers began kidnapping 

 the blacks themselves and carrying them unharmed 

 to the nest. Quite often I found them carrying 

 individuals of their own species. These may have 

 been deserters or they may have been ants from 

 some other community, who, learning of the raid, 

 thought to be present at the final sack and perhaps 

 share in the spoils. A still more puzzling thing 

 was the fa6t that some few red ants bore negroes 

 in the wrong diredtion, — that is, from the red 

 back to the black colony. I have noticed on 

 former occasions that the raid may become thus 

 complicated toward its close as if the ants, drunk 

 with vidlory, were beside themselves. 



On the 7th of August the raid was diredted 

 against a new negro colony some distance further 

 down the road. It was carried on with something 

 like the usual vigor until the 25 th of the month, 

 when it apparently ceased. The first nests of 

 blacks, in which some few ants remained, were 

 no longer molested, though the besieging army 



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