This last remark was made in the form of an interrogation, to which Harry responded that he had not yet observed anything of the kind, nor had his attention been called to it. Ned remarked that he had been told of the destructiveness of this worm, but had not yet seen anything of its work.
“If you had seen it you would remember it,” said the gentleman. “The worm abounds more in the country districts than in the city, and it does not seem to get so much into the city houses as it does into those of the rural districts. Suppose you settle in South Australia, and build yourself a house or buy one already built, and proceed to take your comfort. Some day when you are sitting in your parlor you suddenly feel a leg of your chair going through the floor, and down you go with a crash. Somebody runs to your assistance, and the additional strain put upon the floor causes the break to increase, and, together with the person who has come to your aid, you go down in a heap through a yawning chasm in the floor, no matter whether your room is carpeted or not. If it is the former, the ravages of the worm have been quite concealed by the carpet; while in the latter case the surface of the wood presents the same appearance, while the whole interior of the plank or board has been turned to dust. This sort of thing has happened in many an Australian house, and will doubtless continue to happen.”
Harry asked if there was any way of preventing the ravages of this destroyer.
His informant replied that there were two or three kinds of wood which these insects would not touch. Unfortunately, however, they were higher priced than ordinary wood, and consequently the temptation was to use the cheaper article. Houses could also be built of cement, brick, or other substances which defied the wood worm, but these, again, were expensive and could not be afforded by newly arrived emigrants, whose capital was generally very limited.
“Returning to the subject of the telegraph,” the gentleman continued, “we found a great deal of trouble with the insects destructive to wood, and then, too, we had considerable difficulty with the blacks, though less than we had anticipated. We managed to inspire them with a very wholesome fear of the mysterious fluid that passed through the wires, and though they have burned stations, and killed or wounded quite a number of our people, they have never meddled with the wires.”
“How did you manage to inspire them with such fear?” queried Harry.
“We did it in this way,” was the reply. “Whenever a native visited us, we managed to give him a shock of electricity, and if we could shock an entire group at once it was so much the better. On several occasions we got two or more of their chiefs at stations hundreds of miles apart, and then let them talk with each other over the wires. Where they were well acquainted, they were able to carry on conversations which none but themselves could understand. Then we would have them meet half way between the stations and compare notes, and the result was something that greatly astonished them. Savage people generally attribute to the devil anything they cannot understand, and they very quickly concluded that ‘His Satanic Majesty’ was at the bottom of the whole business and it would be well for them to let it carefully alone.
“An amusing thing happened one day when we were putting up a portion of the line. There was a crowd of native blacks watching us, and the principal man among them walked for an hour or two along the line, making a critical examination of the posts and wires and pacing the distance between the posts.
“When he had evidently made up his mind as to the situation he walked up to the foreman of the working party and said, with an accent of insolence:—