438 
TEKMES, 
they soon bring up wet clay, and build their pipes 
or galleries through the roof in various directions, 
as long as it will support them ; sometimes eating 
the palm-tree leaves and branches of which it is 
composed, and, perhaps (for variety seems very 
pleasing to them) the rattan or other running 
plant which is used as a cord to tye the various 
parts of the roof together, and that to the posts 
which support it : thus, with the assistance of the 
rats, who during the rainy season are apt to shel- 
ter themselves there, and to burrow through it, 
they very soon ruin the house by weakening the 
fastenings and exposing it to the wet. In the 
mean time the posts will be perforated in every 
direction as full of holes as that timber in the bot- 
toms of ships which has been bored by the worms; 
the fibres and knotty parts, which are the hardest^ 
being left to the last. 
They sometimes, in carrying on this business, 
find, I Avill not pretend to say how, that the post 
has some weiglit to support, and then if it is a con- 
venient track to the roof, or is itself a kind of 
wood agreeable to them, tliey bring their mortar, 
and fill all or most of the cavities, leaving the ne- 
cessary roads through it, and as fast as they take 
away tire wood replace the vacancy with that ma- 
terial ; which being worked together by them 
closer and more compactly than human strength 
or art could ram it, when the house is jnillcd to 
pieces, in order to examine if any of the |)osts 
are fit to be used again, those of the softer kinds 
are often found reduced almost to a shell, and all 
