Happily, the walls of the anthill were very thick; no beaver-hut formed of pounded earth could be more perfectly watertight, and a torrent might have passed over it without a particle of moisture making its way through its substance.
As soon as the party had taken possession of the tenement, a lantern was lighted, and they proceeded to examine the interior. The cone, which was about twelve feet high inside, was eleven feet wide at the base, gradually narrowing to a sugar-loaf top. The walls and partitions between the tiers of cells were nowhere less than a foot thick throughout.
These wonderful erections, the result of the combined labour of innumerable insects, are by no means uncommon in the heart of Africa. Smeathman, a Dutch traveller of the last century, has recorded how he and four companions all at one time occupied the summit of one of them in Loundé. Livingstone noticed some made of red clay, of which the height varied from fifteen to twenty feet; and in Nyangwé, Cameron several times mistook one of these colonies for a native camp pitched upon the plain. He described some of these strange edifices as being flanked with small spires, giving them the appearance of a cathedral-dome.
The reddish clay of which the anthill was composed could leave no doubt upon the mind of a naturalist that it had been formed by the species known as Termes bellicosus; had it been made of grey or black alluvial soil, it might have been attributed to the Termes mordax or Termes atrox, formidable names that must awaken anything but pleasure in the minds of all but enthusiast entomologists.
In the centre was an open space, surrounded by roomy compartments, ranged one upon another, like the berths of a ship’s cabin, and lined with the millions of cells that had been occupied by the ants. This central space was inadequate to hold the whole party that had now made their hurried resort to it, but as each of the compartments was sufficiently capacious to admit one person to occupy it in a sitting posture, Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict were exalted to the upper tier, Austin, Bat, and Actaeon occupied the next story, whilst Tom and Hercules, and Dick Sands himself remained below.
Dick soon found that the soil beneath his feet was beginning to get damp, and insisted upon having some of the dry clay spread over it from the base of the cone.
“It is a long time,” he said, “since we have slept with a roof over our heads; and I am anxious to make our refuge as secure as possible. It may be that we shall have to stay here for a whole day or more; on the first opportunity I shall go and explore; it may turn out that we are near the stream we are seeking; and perhaps we shall have to build a raft before we start again.”
Under his direction, therefore, Hercules took his hatchet, and proceeded to break down the lowest range of cells and to spread the dry, brittle clay of which they were composed a good foot thick over the damp floor, taking care not in any way to block up the aperture by which the fresh air penetrated into the interior.
It was indeed fortunate that the termites had abandoned their home; had it swarmed with its multitudes of voracious Neuroptera, the anthill would have been utterly untenable for human beings. Cousin Benedict’s curiosity was awakened, and he was intensely interested in the question of the evacuation, so that he proceeded at once to investigate, if he could, whether the emigration had been recent or otherwise. He took the lantern, and as the result of his scrutiny he soon discovered in a recess what he described as the termites’ “storehouse,” or the place where the indefatigable insects keep their provisions. It was a large cavity, not far from the royal cell, which, together with the cells for the reception of the young larvae, had been destroyed by Hercules in the course of his flooring operations. Out of this receptacle Benedict drew a considerable quantity of gum and vegetable juices, all in a state so liquid as to demonstrate that they had been deposited there quite recently.
“They have only just gone,” he exclaimed, with an air of authority, as if he imagined that someone was about to challenge his assertion.
“We are not going to dispute your word, Mr. Benedict,” said Dick; “here we are; we have taken their place, and shall be quite content for them to keep out of the way, without caring when they went, or where they have gone.”
“But we must care,” retorted Benedict testily; “why they have gone concerns us a good deal; these juices make it evident, from the liquid state in which we find them, that the ants were here this morning; they have not only gone, but they have carried off their young larvae with them; they have been sagacious enough to take warning of some impending danger.”
“Perhaps they heard that we were coming,” said Hercules, laughing.
A look of withering scorn was the only answer that the entomologist deigned to give.
“Yes, I say,” repeated Hercules, “perhaps they heard
