AFRICA. 187 
dome or arch feveral feet In height. Smeathmai^ 
communicated many years ago to the Royal 
Society of Lgndon a very minute defcription of 
them, a tranflation of which has been inferted 
in the French edition of Sparman's Travels by 
the editor. In this account we are told of the 
height and figure of the domes conftruded by the 
tjermites ; of the danger experienced by habita- 
tions in the neighbourhood of thefe infe£ls; 
and of the deftrudion they frequently occafion, 
fo as to deftroy in one night the whole fur- 
niture of a houfe ; but thefe details are not ap-' 
plicable to the termites of the Cape of Good- 
Hope, or at lead to thofe I have had an oppor- 
tunity of feeing, either in Camdebo, or the 
diftrid of Tv/enty-four-Rivers. I have found 
more than once termites in Africa ; but they 
were neither fo dangerous nor fo deftrudive as 
thofe mentioned by Sme^thman. The higheft 
of their huts, which I faw, did not exceed four 
feet ; and they were more or lefs folid, accord- 
ing to the folidity of the ground in which they 
were conftruded. In £hort, inftead of being 
covered with mofs and grals like thofe feen by 
the Englifh traveller, they are always, in the 
part in which I travelled, perfedtly fmooth, 
^a4 
