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and in the East Indies, and are troublesome 

 enough, for they eat almost every thing but 

 metal and glass. They love wood, though, 

 better than any thing else; and they are 

 so numerous that they destroy it wonderfully 

 fast. They are very cunning, too ; they never 

 eat the outside of the wood first, but will 

 work upon the inside, so as to leave the outer 

 part not thicker than a piece of pasteboard. 

 But the curious things I meant to tell you 

 were about their city ; so I will go on to that. 

 When they first begin to build you will see 

 little hills shaped like a sugar-loaf, and rising 

 up above the ground about a foot, or a little 

 more. Here is a picture of them. 



The highest of these little hills is always in 

 the middle ; and they go on building more 

 and more, and making them all higher, still 

 keeping the tallest one in the centre. When 



