Note 455 — LETTER VIII.
Reading edition
The ship here alluded to was the Albion, which was in such a condition from the attack of insects, supposed to be white ants, that, had not the ship been firmly lashed together, it was thought she would have foundered on her voyage home.—The late Mr. Kittoe informed me that the Droguers or Draguers, a kind of lighter employed in the West Indies in collecting the sugar, sometimes so swarm with ants, of the common kind, that they have no other way of getting rid of these troublesome insects than by sinking the vessel in shallow water.