p; thus we three rested in the
violent heat.

On other days, in Borneo, weaver birds have brought dried grasses and
woven them into the fabric of my hammock, making me indeed feel that
my couch was a part of the wilderness. At times, some of the larger
birds have crept close to my glade, to sleep in the shadows of the low
jungle-growth. But these were, one and all, timid folk, politely
incurious, with evident respect for the rights of the individual. But
once, some others of a ruder and more barbaric temperament advanced
upon me unawares, and found me unprepared for their coming. I was
dozing quietly, glad to escape for an instant the insistent screaming
of a cicada which seemed to have gone mad in the heat, when a low
rustling caught my ear--a sound of moving leaves without wind; the
voice of a breeze in the midst of breathless heat. There was in it
something sinister and foreboding. I leaned over the edge of my
hammock, and saw coming toward me, in a broad, irregular front, a
great army of ants, battalion after battalion of them flowing like a
sea of living motes over twigs and leaves and stems. I knew the danger
and I half sat up, prepared to roll out and walk to one side. Then I
gaged my supporting strands; tested them until they vibrated and
hummed, and lay back, watching, to see what would come about. I knew
that no creature in the world could stay in the path of this horde and
live. To kill an insect or a great bird would require only a few
minutes, and the death of a jaguar or a tapir would mean only a few
more. Against this attack, claws, teeth, poison-fangs would be idle
weapons.

In the van fled a cloud of terrified insects--those gifted with flight
to wing their way far off, while the humbler ones went running
headlong, their legs, four, six, or a hundred, making the swiftest
pace vouchsafed them. There were foolish folk who climbed up low
ferns, achieving the swaying, topmost fronds only to be trailed by the
savage ants and brought down to instant death.

Even the winged ones were not immune, for if they hesitated a second,
an ant would seize upon them, and, although carried into the air,
would not loosen his grip, but cling to them, obstruct their flight,
and perhaps bring them to earth in the heart of the jungle, where, cut
off from their kind, the single combat would be waged to the death.
From where I watched, I saw massacres innumerable; terrible battles in
which some creature--a giant beside an an