"But, Uncle Philip, what shall we do with the kite? shall we draw it down?" "Do with it! Why, just tie the end of your string to that root, and it will take care of itself in this wind." "What a monstrous piece of timber this is. Uncle Philip! It must have taken a great many men to move it; and see--there are some larger ones still in the bridge. It must be a difficult work to build a bridge." "Yes, it is so: but there are bridges much harder to build than our little wooden one here. Some are built of stone, and it takes years to finish them. None but a good workman can plan and build a good stone bridge: but I know a little fellow that can make as good a bridge as anybody; and yet no man ever taught him the trade." "Ah! now we know what is coming. You are going to tell us of a dumb animal that can make a bridge." "Yes, I am: and a small animal it is, too, for it is an ant." "What sort of an ant is it?" "It is called the white ant; and as there is a great deal that is very curious about this insect. I think that I had better tell you all about it at once." "Pray do, Uncle Philip; you know you promised to tell us about ants." "True, boys; and I like to keep my promises. In my story about these ants, I think, if you attend, you will find more tools; and besides that, you will hear of a great many things which man makes, and which show matters quite as strange as any of which I have yet told you." "What are they, Uncle Philip?" "They are the building of something like a city, and bridges, and stairs, and roads, and tunnels under ground, and--" "Oh, let us hear--let us hear! We have heard nothing equal to this yet." "Well, then, I begin by telling you that these insects are very common in Africa, and in the East Indies, and are troublesome enough, for they eat almost every thing but metal and glass. They love wood, though, better than any thing else; and they are so numerous that they destroy it wonderfully fast. They are very cunning, too; they never eat the outside of the wood first, but will work upon the inside, so as to leave the outer part not thicker than a piece of pasteboard. But the curious things I meant to tell you were about their city; so I will go on to that. When they first begin to build you will see little hills shaped like a sugar-loaf, and rising up above the ground about a foot, or a little more. Here is a picture of them. [Illustration] The highest of these little hills is always in the middle; and they go on building more and more, and making them all higher, still keeping the tallest one in the centre. When they have made them as high as they wish, then they fill in the spaces between the tops of all these sugar-loaf hills, so as to make one roof over all. Here is a picture of one finished. [Illustration] After this is done, they take down nearly all of the little sugar-loaf hills inside; for they only wanted them for a scaffold to support the top while they were building it."