CHAPTER V.
ANTS AND THEIR DWELLING.
At this moment the storm burst with a violence unknown in temperate latitudes.
It was providential that Dick Sand and his companions had found this refuge! In fact, the rain did not fall in distinct drops, but in streams of various thickness.

Sometimes it was a compact mass forming a sheet of water, like a cataract, a Niagara.

Imagine an aerial basin, containing a whole sea, being upset.

Under such showers the ground was hollowed out, the plains were changed to lakes, the streams to torrents, the rivers, overflowing, inundated vast territories.

In temperate zones the violence of the storms decreases according to their duration; but in Africa, however heavy they are, they continue for several entire days.