One may go to bed with no fear from these little creatures, since no sign of them has been seen, and awake in the morning to find little covered passages overspreading the floor, chests of clothing, and the various stores, and to discover with dismay that the contents of the chests and of the store closets have been entirely destroyed by the thousands of busy ants, that, like an invading host, are engaged in working destruction with their sharp jaw-blades. Wood and cotton are the only materials they destroy; wool and silk they invariably spare.
Another species of ant which this author describes lives in the forest and is a very near neighbor of the other. He called it the tree ant from its habit of building hives or nests in trees.
Many of the nests of the termites are conical or turret-shaped, and are often twelve, sometimes twenty feet high; they are built in groups like villages. While there is a variety of termites most destructive in their line of march across a country, yet, in some ways, they are very useful; for they destroy every kind of decaying matter, whether animal or vegetable. They will, when pressed for food, eat even grass. Some writers have described the snapping of the mandibles of such a vast multitude of termites as resembling the sound of a gentle breeze among trees.
These termites have been known to attack the woodwork of houses; they can soon destroy even the stoutest timbers, gnawing them till they become mere shells. Some extraordinary stories have been told of their attacking and devouring large animals. Very probably, however, they do this only when the animal is very feeble from illness or old age.
Wherever food is to be found, they come in great hosts, and it is very hard to exterminate them; for, as fast as one multitude is disposed of, other multitudes press on from the rear ranks. They gather into their nests great stores of corn. The natives of Africa are very fond of it and often help themselves from these stores.
The natives often use these insects as food, and consider them very delicate and delicious eating when roasted. Sometimes they are pounded by the natives into a kind of jam, which the boys and girls of Africa like as well as American children do raspberry or currant jam.
It is no uncommon thing for hunters out searching for game, or even wild animals looking for prey, to mount the hills made by the termites to get a view of the surrounding country; for, so hard do the plastered tops of the unique dwellings of these most curious of masons become, when dry, that they easily sustain the weight of a human being, and even of a beast of the plain.
While the devastation which an army of termites leaves behind in its march is appalling, yet an army of locusts is still more destructive; for it often leaves the country in its line of march as bare as if no vegetation had ever grown there. Africa suffers in no small degree from the inroads of this enemy, small in size, but great in numbers.
Livingstone, in his travels in South Africa, speaks of the hills erected by the termites. These gigantic mounds, as he terms them, are utilized by the natives, who choose their sides as choice spots for rearing early maize, tobacco, or anything which requires a rich soil.
In the parts through which he passed these mounds were generally covered by masses of wild date trees. The fruit was small, for no tree was allowed to stand long. Food was abundant and the natives did not care to spend their time preserving wild fruit trees. So, when a date palm grew too tall for its top to be reached, as soon as the fruit was ripe it was cut down, in order that there should be no occasion to climb it; for it was considered too much trouble to do so.