ble to warp or shrink. This would afford such a
beautiful and safe protection to every dwelling against the intrusion of
all and every living thing, even the smallest insect--while a full and
free circulation of fresh air would be allowed--that a residence in
Africa would become attractive and desirable, instead of, as now (from
imagination), objectionable.

Sanitary Effects of Ants--Termites, and Drivers

A word about ants in Africa--so much talked of, and so much
dreaded--will legitimately be in place here, regarding them as a
sanitary means, provided by Divine Providence. The _termites_, bug-a-bug
or white double ant, shaped like two ovals somewhat flattened, joined
together by a cylinder somewhat smaller in the middle, with a head at
one end of one of the ovals, is an herbivorous insect, and much abused
as the reputed destroyers of books, papers, and all linen or muslin
clothing. They feed mainly on such vegetable matter as is most subject
to decay--as soft wood, and many other such, when void of vitality--and
there is living herbage upon which they feed, and thereby prove a
blessing to a country with a superabundance of rank vegetable matter. It
is often asserted that they destroy whole buildings, yet I have never
seen a person who knew of such a disaster by them, although they may
attack and do as much mischief in such cases at times as the wood-worms
of America; and, in regard to clothing, though doubtless there have been
instances of their attack upon and destruction of clothing, yet I will
venture to assert that there is no one piece of clothing attacked and
destroyed by these creatures, to ten thousand by the moths which get
into the factories and houses in civilized countries, where woolen goods
are kept. In all my travels in Africa, I never had anything attacked by
the termite; but during my stay of seven months in Great Britain, I had
a suit of woolen clothes completely eaten up by moths in Liverpool.

Drivers

Drivers, as every person already knows, are black ants, whose reputation
is as bad for attacking living animals, and even human beings, as the
termites' for attacking clothing. This creature, like its white cousin,
is also an instrument in the hands of Providence as a sanitary means,
and to the reverse of the other is carnivorous, feeding upon all flesh
whether fresh or putrified. Like the white, for the purpose of
destroying the superabundance of vegetable, certainly these black ants
were de