278 Naturalist at Large 



Port of Lourengo Marques bid fair to be enjoyable indeed. 

 There were lots of birds to look at. Picturesque natives in 

 little groups chattered as they walked along the dazzling 

 highway. We had progressed about half an hour and had 

 stopped to gather some of the seed pods from a giant sausage 

 tree for planting in a friend's garden in Florida, when I 

 looked up and said, "Hurry back to the car. There's a 

 terrible storm brewing." Great black clouds were rolling up 

 on the horizon and quite obviously headed in our direction. 

 So thundergustuous and menacing did they appear that we 

 almost felt the chill wind that often precedes a terrifying 

 storm. 



There was only one road and we had to make Lourengo 

 Marques for the cars to return to Komati Poort. As we got 

 nearer to the storm, we marveled that there was no light- 

 ning and no thunder, and then we discovered that this 

 was no storm at all but a gigantic cloud of locusts, miles 

 long. In India and in Central America we had seen swarms 

 of locusts, but nothing anywhere on this gigantic scale. 

 The ground they passed over — for they were constantly 

 alighting, eating a little, and then flying on — was com- 

 pletely bare of vegetation, the scorched earth in very 

 sooth. Our wheels slipped and skidded on the pavement, 

 which swarmed with them. Natives with great flat baskets 

 gathered them up for food and the storks had a field day. 

 For a mile or so we passed through the strange semi- 

 darkness of this clattering, snapping squall of insects before 

 coming out again into the brilliant sunshine. 



