INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 127 



alarmed by the appearance of locusts. In 1748 they were observed here 

 in considerable numbers, but providentially they soon perished without 

 propagating. These were evidently stragi^lers from the vast swarms which 

 in the preceding year did such infinite damage in Wallachia, Moldavia, 

 Transylvania, Hungary and Poland. One of these swarms, which -entered 

 Transylvania in August, was several hundred fathoms in width (at Vienna 

 the breadth of one of them was three miles), and extended to so great a 

 length as to be four hours in passing over the Red Tower ; and such was 

 its density that it totally intercepted the solar light, so that when they flew 

 low one person could not see another at the distance of twenty paces'. 

 A similar account has been given me by a friend of mine * long resident 

 in India. He relates that when at Poonah he was witness to an immense 

 army of locusts which ravaged the Mahratta country, and was supposed to 

 come from Arabia (tiiis, if correct, is a strong proof of their power to 

 pass the sea under favourable circumstances). The column they com- 

 posed, my friend was informed, extended five hundred miles; and so com- 

 pact was it, when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the 

 sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs dis- 

 tant from his residence not more than two hundred yards were rendered 

 quite invisible. This was not the Locusta minratoria, but a red species ; 

 which circumstance much increased the horror of the scene ; for, cluster- 

 ing upon the trees after they had stripped them of their foliage, they im- 

 parted to them a sanguine hue. The peach was the last tree that they 

 touched. 



Dr. Clarke, to give some idea of the infinite numbers of these animals, 

 compares them to a flight of snow when the flakes are carried obliquely 

 by the wind. They covered his carnage and horses, and the Tartars 

 assert that people are sometimes suffocated b}' them. The whole face of 

 nature might have been described as covered by a living veil. They con- 

 sisted of two species, L. tatarica and migratoria ; the first is almost twice 

 the size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars 

 the herald or messenger.* The account of another traveller, Mr. Bar- 

 row, 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 covered 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 1780 the empire of Marocco was terribly devastated by 

 them ; every green thing was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the 

 orange and pomegranate escaping — a most dreadful famine ensued. The 

 poor were seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable subsist- 

 ence from the roots of plants ; and women and children followed the 

 camels from whose dung they [)icked the undigested grains of barley, 

 which they devoured with avidity : in consequence of this, vast numbers 

 perished, and the roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcasses of the 

 dead. On this sad occasion fathers sold their children, and husbands 



1 PhUos. Trans, xlvi. 30. 



2 Major ]Moor, author of Tlie Narrative, of Captain Little's Detachment, The Hindu 

 Pantheon, &c. 



3 Travels, i. 348. •» Travels, &c. 267. 



