"But they will eat us up!" objected Benedict.
"I can't help that," retorted Dick; "go we must, and go at once."
"But stop a moment," continued the provoking naturalist; "stop, and tell me: I can't be wrong: I always thought that white ants could never be found elsewhere than in Africa."
"Come along, sir, I say; come along, quick!" shouted Dick, terrified lest Mrs. Weldon should have overheard him.
They hurried on. A wind had risen; large spattering drops were now beginning to fall more heavily on the ground and in a few minutes it would be impossible to stand against the advancing tempest. The nearest of the accumulation of ant-hills was reached in time, and however dangerous their occupants might be, it was decided either to expel them, or to share their quarters. Each cone was formed of a kind of reddish clay, and had a single opening at its base. Hercules took his hatchet, and quickly enlarged the aperture till it would admit his own huge body. Not an ant made its appearance. Cousin Benedict expressed his extreme surprise. But the structure unquestionably was empty, and one after another the whole party made their way inside.
The rain by this time was descending in terrific torrents, strong enough to extinguish, one would think, the most violent explosions of the electric fluid. But the travellers were secure in their shelter, and had nothing to fear for the present; their tenement was of greater stability than a tent or a native hut. It was one of those marvellous structures erected by little insects, which to Cameron appeared even more wonderful than the upraising of the Egyptian pyramids by human hands. To use his own comparison, it might be likened to the construction of a Mount Everest, the loftiest of the Himalayan peaks, by the united labour of a nation.
CHAPTER V.
WHITE ANTS.
The storm had now burst in full fury, and fortunate it was that a refuge had been found. The rain did not fall in separate drops as in temperate zones, but descended like the waters of a cataract, in one solid and compact mass, in a way that could only suggest the outpour of some vast aerial basin containing the waters of an entire ocean. Contrary, too, to the storms of higher latitudes, of which the duration seems ordinarily to be in inverse ratio to their violence, these African tempests, whatever their magnitude, often last for whole days, furrowing the soil into deep ravines, changing plains to lakes and brooks to torrents, and causing rivers to overflow and cover vast districts with their inundations. It is hard to understand whence such volumes of vapour and electric fluid can accumulate. The earth, upon these occasions, might almost seem to be carried back to the remote period which has been called "the diluvian age."