198 SAGACITY OF ANTS. 



Heavy rains prevented us from crossing the plain in front 

 (N.N.W) in one day, and the constant wading among the 

 grass hurt the feet of the men. There is a footpath all the 

 way across, but, as this is worn down beneath the level of 

 the rest of the plain, it is necessarily the deepest portion, 

 and the men, avoiding it, make a new walk by its side. A 

 path, however narrow, is a great convenience, as any one 

 who has travelled on foot in Africa will admit. The virtual 

 want of it here caused us to make slow and painful progress. 



Ants surely are wiser than some men, for they learn by 

 experience. They have established themselves even on 

 these plains, where water stands so long annually as to 

 allow the lotus, and other aqueous plants, to come to matu- 

 rity. When all the ant-horizon is submerged a foot deep 

 they manage to exist by ascending to little houses built of 

 black tenacious loam on stalks of grass and placed higher 

 than the line of inundation. This must have been the re- 

 sult of experience; for, if they had waited till the water 

 actually invaded their terrestrial habitations, they would not 

 have been able to procure materials for their aerial quarters 

 unless they dived down to the bottom for every mouthful 

 of clay. Some of these upper chambers are about the size 

 of a bean, and others as large as a man's thumb. They 

 must have built in anticipation; and, if so, let us humbly 

 hope that the sufferers by the late inundations in France 

 may be possessed of as much common sense as the little 

 black ants of the Dilolo plains. 



