Half an acre of my Indian corn looks only middling, but will probably improve; Swedish turnips, rape, and mangel-wurzel look well; every kitchen vegetable is promising. In removing some barrels from the house, I found them filled with white ants, which had reduced the bottom of the vessel (an American flour cask) to a substance of extreme tenuity, as thin as a card.
Have got a "whisper" that one of my servants means to make battle to get another half year taken from his indentures, but I shall kick most manfully against this.
Nov. 1st.—Killed a great number of white ants, which are extraordinary creatures, the most impotent looking things, and yet they perpetrate much mischief, carrying on their depredations in secret, and making their imperceptible approaches under the screen of a covered way. Opened my front window, which has a blackboy lattice, for the first time this day since the natives threw the spear; I am making a linen blind for it—very grand, all this!
I am at a sad loss for furniture, having scarcely a table, chair, press, or shelf, except what I brought with me, and I have no doors—mere contrivances in place of them. More of servants' whims! I have just heard of one who demands four glasses of rum per day! Really, there is no enduring the insolence of this class here; they
