220 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



face of nature might have been described as covered by a 

 hving veil. They consisted of two species, L. tatarica 

 and migratoria ,• the first is ahnost twice the size of the 

 second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the 

 Tartars the herald or messenwr *. — The account of 

 another traveller, Mr. Barrow, of their ravages in the 

 southern parts of Africa (in 1784- and 1797) is still more 

 striking : an area of nearly two thousand square miles 

 might be said literally to be covei'ed by them. When 

 driven into the sea by a N.W. wind, they formed upon 

 the shore for fifty miles a bank three or four feet high, 

 and when the wind was S. E. the stench was so powerful 

 as to be smelt at the distance of 150 miles''. 



From 1778 to 1780theempireof Marocco was terribly 

 devastated by them, every green thing was eaten up, not 

 even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escap- 

 ing — a most dreadful famine ensued. — The poor were 

 seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable sub- 

 sistence from the roots of plants; and women and children 

 followed the camels, from whose dung they picked the in- 

 digested grains of barley, which they devoured with avi- 

 dity : in consequence of this, vast numbers perished, and 

 the roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcases of 

 the dead. On this sad occasion, fathers sold their chil- 

 dren, and husbands their wives'^. When they visit a 

 country, says Mr. Jackson, speaking of the same empire, 

 it behoves every one to lay in provision for a famine, for 

 they stay from three to seven years. When they have 

 devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, con- 

 suming first the leaves and then the bark. From Mocfa- 



" Travels, i. 348. ^ Travels, he. 257. 



"^ Souther's Thalaba. i. IJl. 



