Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/153

Rh On examination, it appeared that one end of a piece of rope thrown on the box rested on the ground; along this they had advanced and done their destructive work.

Many a resident in India can sympathize with the worthy Carmelite friar, San Bartolomeo, who thus narrates his first acquaintance with these little intruders, when at Pondicherry: "I had put all my effects into a chest which stood in my apartment; and being one day desirous of taking out a book, as soon as I opened the chest, I discovered in it an innumerable multitude of those white insects which the Tamulians call kareyan. When I examined the different articles in the chest, I, to my sorrow, found that these little animals had perforated my shirts in a thousand places, and gnawed to pieces my books; my girdle, amice, and shoes fell to pieces as soon as I touched them. The ants were moving in columns each behind the other, and each carrying away in its mouth a fragment of my goods. My effects were more than half destroyed, but it was very fortunate for me that cotton goods were sold exceedingly cheap at Pondicherry.”

A Scotch gentleman once assured me that on opening an almirah (wardrobe) he found his