NARRATIVE OF AN 



and weight, and thus capable of receiving a more elegant 

 polifli. 



About this period the whole camp was infefted with a 

 kind of wood-lice, fo called in Surinam, but with more 

 propriety they might be termed white ants, refembling 

 them almofl: in every particular, except that the ants 

 dwell in the ground, and thefe build their nefts on the 

 trunks of trees : thefe nells, being black, round, and ir- 

 regular, are not unlike the woolly head of a negro, but 

 fometimes as large as the half of a hogfliead, and com- 

 pofed of a ruft- coloured incruftated earth, which is ex- 

 tremely hard, and impenetrable to the weather. In this 

 mafs, which internally confifts of innumerable crofs 

 roads, each the fize of a goofe-quill, they live together 

 in myriads, whence they fally forth, and commit their 

 depredations, unequalled by any other infedt in Guiana, 

 piercing through the hardeft wood, leather, linen, or 

 whatever comes in their way. They alfo frequently get 

 into the houfes by an incrufted covered road made againft 

 the wall, refembling the half of a Aiding pencil, which 

 is with its windings fom.etimes feveral hundred feet long: 

 if this is not deftroyed upon its firft appearance (which 

 muft be done by arfenick or the oil of turpentine) as 

 they crumble every thing to duft, whole dwellings will 

 be entirely demolifhed, and come down to the ground in 

 rubbifli. Thefe infedts (notwithftanding their fetid abo- 

 minable fmell) are reckoned a very good food for poultry, 

 who are faid to thrive on them even better than on In- 

 dian 



