Читать книгу Consider Her Ways - Frederick Philip Grove - Страница 10

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The most interesting, not to say alarming feature of this adventure consisted in the proof which it afforded of the fact that there were Ecitons about. It was, of course, one of our tasks to secure what information we could bearing on the life, the habits, and the anatomy of these ants. But, seeing that their observation was fraught with considerable danger, I had made up my mind to leave it over to the end. We could not afford to run the risk of being greatly reduced in number right from the start; and that was the reason why we had so far travelled by night. For Ecitons, though almost blind, hunt in daytime. In view of their at least partial blindness, this could not be explained by conditions of light. In fact, there is one race of Ecitons which is absolutely blind (Eciton Cæcum); and these hunt with the same efficiency, if not a greater one as those endowed with a vestige of sight, and, what is more important, also in daytime. They are almost completely hypogæic; and when they have to cross open rocky stretches where not even a cover of dead leaves is available, they construct superterranean galleries, using a sort of masonry in the construction of which they are highly adept. Since this race of the blind Ecitons is the one which is geographically most widely distributed, it can readily be inferred, as Bissa-tee pointed out, that the whole trend of evolution, within that genus, must be in the direction of blindness: for some reason or other blindness favours, instead of handicapping, them in the struggle for existence. The fact, then, that Ecitons hunt in daytime must be explained by conditions of temperature rather; and this led me to a further conjecture. Our geographers had already reported that, though our progress in a south-north direction had so far been small, the whole trend of the Narrows being westward, there had already been a slight lowering of the mean temperature, perceptible only to trained observers and by the most delicate physiological tests. The spread between the temperatures at noon and midnight had also increased. This led me to think that, since sooner or later our route would bend more and more to the north, this lowering of the mean temperature would become more and more pronounced. If, then, the difference between day and night was even here sufficient to force the Ecitons to go into bivouac at night, it seemed highly probable that, as we proceeded north, the limit of their distribution would be reached as soon as the daytime temperature fell to a low enough level, at least occasionally, to prevent their being abroad: from then on only did I think it safe to travel during the day.

When, therefore, our work at this station was finished and we all had sufficiently recovered from the effects of fatigue and hunger, I set the hour of departure once more for sunset. To omit all detail, we thus marched for another 27 nights. Many minor observations were made by geographers, zoologists, botanists and meteorologists; and these were reported every morning before we went into our cluster camp. When they were of special interest or too long to be committed to memory, Adver-tee was employed to record them on trees marked in some conspicuous way, so that we could pick them up again on our way home. I often admired the skill with which Adver-tee could compress a great deal of meaning into very brief scents.

And then, quite unexpectedly, we met with an extraordinary obstacle: the whole continent was cut in two by water. It was not a river, for the banks were straight and perpendicular, unmistakably artificial, and of smooth stone. As we found later, it was a work constructed by man: an engineering feat not unworthy of ants. For the moment, however, we did not know that; or I should at once have concluded that no doubt ways and means had been provided for crossing this canal. As it was, there was nothing to do but to go into quarters. This was the first place where we resolved to excavate a cache or burrow in which to plant our own fungi. In this, our chief difficulty arose, of course, from the fact, which I had foreseen, that, we having no minims along to weed and cultivate the plantations, the latter were at once overrun with great masses of unsuitable and even poisonous fungi; and this necessitated burrows of a size quite out of proportion to our numbers. Before our present necessities were relieved by the accident to be related, the new hill had reached the following dimensions: superficial diameter 768 antlengths, depth 380 antlengths; number of chambers averaging 60 antlengths in one and 20 in another direction, 94.

Meanwhile large adventitious bodies of locally represented ants were pressed into service by Assa-ree whose methods I did not care to enquire into; the end was welcome even if the means were not. For it was clear that this great obstacle could be overcome only by a daring feat of our own: we had resolved to fill in this canal or, failing in this, to throw a dam across it. For a whole moon an ever-increasing multitude (they must in the end have amounted to many hundreds of thousands) was employed in rolling pellets of clay over the edge of the embankment. Two shifts of workers prepared the pellets; and two relays were employed in dumping them, so that the work went forward without intermission, day and night. We soon came to the conclusion that this great task would take us a year and 200 days to accomplish.

And then an almost incredible event solved our difficulties for us. One night it was reported to me that a floating monster carrying many men was coming down from the north. I investigated at once and found this monster to consist of a huge aquatic beetle resembling in more than one way a firefly. Every Atta is, of course, familiar with the purely aerial fireflies of our country; but the size of this monster was almost unbelievable: it measured in length at least 7,000 antlengths.

Now, as this monstrous beetle came floating along, with a humming noise, and as it was on the point of passing our station--where all those of us who were endowed with eye-sight stood aligned on the bank of this enormous ditch--the labour which we had so far expended in the endeavour to dam the canal bore fruit in an entirely unexpected manner: the beetle got caught between the far bank and our talus which by this time reached out into the water to a distance of 350 ant-lengths. The firefly came to with a terrific crash which dislocated the masonry of both banks. The whole floating population of men, borne along by the monster, was knocked off their feet; and even we were overthrown by the impact.⁴

⁴ See New York Daily Mail of April 16, 1924 for a report of this accident from the human side. The paper ascribes it to a land-slide. E.

Again I must give Assa-ree her due. Very few minutes had elapsed before she reported to me that she had established a practicable route to the other side. I had to trust her blindly; for obviously, if we were to profit by this extraordinary accident, no time was to be lost. Beings who were able to construct such works as this canal and to tame such insects as this beetle would soon find means to extricate themselves. By one powerful emission of the proper scent I issued the order to assemble and to obey Assa-ree in every point.

It was night; and the task of crossing was dangerous in the extreme. But Assa-ree had provided for everything. Along the whole route, with the exception of a few gaps of which I am going to speak, she had stationed huge, alien ants holding in their jaws small fireflies of the kind familiar to us; and these emitted a pale, greenish light. They had already been employed to carry on the night-work. Now they illumined a narrow, precipitous path through the ruined masonry of the hither bank; and when, ultimately, we reached the far bank, they were similarly lined up along its acclivity. Assa-ree was here, there, and everywhere.

Bissa-tee, Anna-zee, Lemma-nee, and myself led the way, Bissa-tee in her intrepid manner ahead of us all. We wound our way down almost to the water's edge, first through a rough and almost impassable gap in the displaced rocks, then over the talus constructed by our gangs. As we approached the water, Assa-ree appeared, enjoining caution. The road abutted above the water at a point where, opposite, a round, circular hole gaped like a trachea in the flank of the beetle. The gap, of perhaps 120 antlengths, was bridged by a yielding and excessively narrow, but tough and resistant sort of cable the histological nature of which we had no time to examine. In itself it would have admitted of no other passage than in single file. But Assa-ree signalled a halt and issued an order. Whereupon several hundred ants poured on to this bridge; these fastened themselves sideways to the yielding fibres and thereby trebled its width. At a further signal from Assa-ree we proceeded, marching four abreast. In the opening of the trachea, Assa-ree was waiting for us.

What we walked over next, inside of the beetle, is beyond my guessing. It was a tremendous task; for we had no light here; but Assa-ree, keeping ahead of us, scented the road. At last we came out on the far side; and it seemed that we had escaped one danger only to succumb to another. Here there was no bridge. We were 200 or 300 antlengths above the water, and the bank was as far away.

Assa-ree, however, ran down the perpendicular flank of the beetle and out on the water. As we discovered when we followed her, she was supported from below by a chain of ants clinging together, six or eight abreast, and submerged in the chilling flood. Never in my life had I touched anything as cold as this water; but for good or evil we were committed; and we struggled on.

Assa-ree left us; nor was there any need for further guidance; the moment we set foot on solid ground, the fireflies lighted us again; and we were soon on top of the bank. It took the greater part of the night for the army to cross; and all the time there was a noisy and mysterious commotion going on among the humans on or within the beetle. When the last of us had landed, the grey of dawn was showing in the east; and still there remained one task: the living float of ants had to be withdrawn from the water; for we could not think of leaving them who had been the means of our accomplishing the crossing to drown in the icy floods of this tremendous cut.

However, this was soon done, and all of them were taken, in the mandibles of our carriers, to a wooded patch west of the canal where the rising sun restored all but one to consciousness and normal life.

Such was the great adventure of the human canal.

It came as an anticlimax when our geographers, shortly after, discovered that this cut was, at regular intervals, provided with gates over which we could have crossed without any trouble. At any rate, this discovery settled all my worries with regard to our eventual return.