TERMITID.E — AVIIITE-ANTS. 133 



Termites were rescued from that obloquy which the sup- 

 posed power of feasting on precious metals had cast on their 

 whole race.^ 



Kempfer, durinpr his stay at a Dutch fort on the coast of 

 Malabar, one morning discovered some peculiar marks like 

 arches upon his table, about the size of his little finger. 

 Suspecting they were the work of Termites, he made an ac- 

 curate examination, and, much to his surprise, found not 

 only what he expected to be true, but that these voracious 

 insects had pierced a passage of that thickness up one leg 

 of the table, then across the table, and so down again 

 through the middle of another leg into the floor ! What 

 made it the more wonderful was that it had all been done in 

 the few hours that intervened between his retiring to rest 

 and his rising.^ 



Mr. Forbes, on surveying a room which had been locked 

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

 advanced works in various directions toward some prints 

 and drawings in English frames ; the glasses appeared to 

 be uncommonly dull, and the fram.es covered with dust. 

 "On attempting," says he, '*to wipe it off, I was astonished 

 to find the glasses fixed on the wall, not suspended in frames 

 as I left them, but completely 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 cov- 

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



It is even asserted, says Kirby and Spence, that the su- 

 perb residence of the Governor-general at Calcutta, which 

 cost the East India Company such immense sums, is now 

 going rapidly to decay in consequence of the attacks of 

 these insects. But not content with the dominions they have 

 acquired, and the cities they have laid low on Terra Firma, 

 encouraged by success, the White-ants have also aimed at 

 the sovereignty of the ocean, and once had the hardihood 

 to attack even a British ship of the line — the Albion ; and, 

 in spite of the efforts of her commander and his valiant crew, 

 having boarded they got possession of her, and handled her 



1 Orient. Mem., i. 3G3-4. 



2 Kempf. Japan, ii. 127; also Pinkerton's Col. of Voy. and Trai 

 vii 701. 



3 Orient. Mem., i. 362. 



