ANT HILLS. 123 amongst thousands of others, through street and lane, and found him. When we remained behind the army, on the Atbara's bank, the Schaigies sent back to escort us discovered, among the tracks of the 700 or 800 asses of the army, the footmarks of one belonging to a friend, and the event showed they were right.

Every evening now there is much lightning in the south-east, and it seems as if the rainy season had commenced in the Abyssinian mountains ; we also have had here a forerunner of the much -dreaded chariffs, repeated showers, accompanied by thunder and lightning. This latter is called by the Turks " semscheck," by the Arabs " bark." We were, during these showers, well drenched in our airy tents, but slept on, wet as we were, till next morning, and did not suffer from our duckings. Every attempt to sleep in the day-time is now vain, from swarms of a small species of fly, that seems every day to augment its numbers ; ants, too, are to be found in numerous troops, both in Taka and in the upper parts of Faszogl ; all sorts of woollen or cotton clothes that come in their way are in an instant devoured, and in one night carpets, dresses, &c.. are eat into rags. Their devastations are boundless, in the shortest time they have devoured the largest stores of grain ; they are large in size, and of a different species from those in Dongola. We had for long observed in the fields mounds of earth, of a conical form, from five to twelve feet high, and three or five feet in diameter, and took them at first for look-out towers, such as are to be met with in Upper Egypt, with men on their tops to overlook the whole field, and drive away thieves, whether winged or biped. Round, and even in our camps, were many such mounds; anxious to discover their real purpose, we examined them, and, to our astonishment, found they were not the work of men, but formed by the small ant On the outside were merely to be seen a number of irregularlyplaced round holes, without seeming order or arrangement, save that at the foot of the pillar, and for two feet from the ground, there were none; these holes led into the interior, and there the swarms and multitudes of these small insects were beyond belief. The whole edifice was most artfully and scientifically laid out in small cells, with passages between them ; the partitions of these