246 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



furniture. On surveying a room which had been locked 

 up during an absence of a few weeks, he observed a 

 number of advanced works in various directions towards 

 some prints and drawings in English frames ; the glasses 

 appeared to be uncommonly dull, and the frames co- 

 vered with dust. " On attempting," says he, " to wipe 

 it off, I was astonished to find the glasses fixed to the 

 wall, not suspended in frames as I left them, but com- 

 pletely surrounded by an incrustation cemented by the 

 white ants, who had actually eaten up the deal frames 

 and back-boards, and the greater part of the paper, and 

 left the glasses upheld by the incrustation, or covered 

 way, which they had formed during their depredation^." 

 It is even asserted that the superb residence of the Go- 

 vernor-General at Calcutta, which cost the East India 

 Company such immense sums, is now rapidly going to 

 decay in consequence of the attacks of these insects'". — 

 But not content with the dominions they have acquired, 

 and the cities they liave laid low on Terra Firma, en- 

 couraged by success the white ants have also aimed at 

 the sovereignty of the ocean, and once had the hardi- 

 hood to attack even a British ship of the line; and in 

 spite of the efforts of her commander and his valiant 

 crew, having boarded they got possession of her, and 

 handled her so roughly, that when brought into port, 

 being no longer fit for service, she was obliged to be 

 broken up*^. 



» Oriental Memoirs, i. 362. " Morning Herald, Dec. 31st, 1814. 



^ The ship here alluded to was the Albion, which was in such a con- 

 dition from the attack of insects, supposed to be white ants, that, had 

 not the ship been firmly lashed together, it was thought she would have 

 foundered on her voyage home. — Mr. Kittoe informs me that the Droguers 

 or Draguers, akind of lighter employed in the West Indies in collecting 



