ANT-HILLS 
really too delightful in their reasoning; and, mind you, 
it is not done with a mischievous sense of the ludicrous — 
indeed, no; it is done seriously. The Ponte Alto stream 
was, like most of the other watercourses of that region, 
wonderfully limpid. 
From that point we were in charming open country, 
where we could freely breathe the delicious air. Occa¬ 
sionally we saw some angelin trees (the Angelino arnar- 
goso and Angelino pedra), technically known as Andira 
vermifuga M. and Andira spectabilis Said. 
Nearly all the woods we found had a high specific 
gravity: the two latter, for instance, 0.984 and 1.052 
respectively, and a resistance to crushing of kilos. 0.684 
and kilos. 0.648. 
Cacti of great size were numerous. We were now in a 
region where termite-hills (ant-hills) were to be seen in 
great numbers. They stood from two to three feet above 
ground, although occasionally some could be seen nearly 
double that height. Some of the ant-heaps were extraor¬ 
dinary in their architecture, and resembled miniature 
castles with towers and terraced platforms. Whether they 
had been built so by the ants or worn down to that shape 
by the pouring rain and wind, was not so easy to tell. 
The more one saw of the termites, the more one 
disliked them, for they were the most insidious, destructive 
little brutes of that region. They were ugly in appear¬ 
ance, with their fat bodies of a dirty, greenish-white colour. 
Nevertheless one could not help having great admiration 
for those little rascals, which in one night were able to 
devour the bottom of stout wooden boxes, and in a few 
hours damaged saddles, clothes, shoes, or any article which 
happened to be left resting for a little while on the ground. 
They were even able to make an entire house tumble down 
in a comparatively short time, if the material used in the 
construction were wood. 
One hated them; yet, when one knew all about them, 
135 
