"These red ants go out in large numbers and make war upon a species of black ant that lives in the same region with themselves. When they have conquered the settlement they invade the nest of their victims and carry away the eggs or cocoons containing the undeveloped young; these they transport to their own nest, and they also take along a sufficient number of the black ants to take care of the young as they are hatched. It is exactly the same as if a party of slave-hunters should invade a negro village and carry off all the infants they could find, together with enough of the negro women to feed and care for the young prisoners. The captive ants hatched in the nest become slaves as soon as they are large enough to work, and whether the old ones are retained when the children no longer require their attention has not been ascertained." "What a curious piece of information!" exclaimed one of the boys. "It sounds like a fiction, but I suppose the naturalists have removed all doubts concerning it." "Yes," answered Doctor Bronson; "you can read of it in any work on natural history where the habits of ants are set forth." By the time they reached the boat she was ready to move on, and in a little while the scene of the antelope hunt was left behind. In this part of the Nile few sailing or other boats were seen. Occasionally the natives were on the water with their canoes or their rafts of reeds, such as we have already seen, but they almost invariably propelled these diminutive craft by means of oars. Once in a while the boat of a trader from Khartoum was passed, and in one place a dozen or more of these craft were assembled in front of a native village. Abdul said they were probably waiting the arrival of a convoy of ivory from the interior, and it might be they were taking in a few slaves, in addition to the other products of the country. But though there was a scarcity of boats and other signs of commerce there was no lack of animal life. Frank was looking out from the deck of the steamer as it turned a bend in the river; suddenly he saw a large animal not twenty yards away, standing where it had apparently been drinking, at the edge of the river. As it caught sight of the boat it sprung up the bank and disappeared in the thicket, giving vent to an angry roar as it moved away. "That was a lion," said Abdul, who happened to be looking in the same direction, "and you will see more of his race as we proceed. Lions are quite numerous in this part of the country, and in fact all over Africa, and if you want to hunt them you can easily do so. And there are leopards and other carnivorous animals here," he continued, "and several varieties of serpents." Fred asked if they were in the region of the huge pythons, that were said to be large enough to swallow a man.