128 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



their wives. ^ Wiien they visit a country, says Mr. Jackson, speaking of 

 the same empire, it behoves every one to lay in [irovision for a famine, for 

 they stay from three to seven years. When they have devoured all other 

 vegetables, they attack the trees, consuming; first the leaves and then the 

 bark. From Mogador to Tangier, before the jjlague in 1799, the face of 

 the earth was covered by them : — at that time a singular incident oc- 

 curred at El Araiche. The whole region from the confines of the Sahara 

 was ravaged by them ; but on the other side of the river El Kos not one 

 of them was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying 

 over it. Till then they had proceeded northward ; but upon arriving at 

 its banks they turned to the east, so that all the country north of El 

 Araiche was full of pulse, fruits, and grain — exhibiting a most striking 

 contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district. At length they were 

 all carried by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean ; the shore, as 

 in former instances, was covered by their carcasses, and a pestilence was 

 caused by the horrid stench which they emitted: but when this evil 

 ceased, their devastations were followed by a most abundant crop. The 

 Arabs of the Desert, " whose hands are against every man," ^ and who 

 rejoice in the evil that befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds 

 of locusts proceeding from the north, are filled with gladness, anticipating 

 a general mortality, which they call EI-Khcre (the benediction) ; for, 

 when a country is thus laid waste, they emerge from their arid deserts and 

 pitch their tents in the desolated plains. ^ — The neighbouring kingdom of 

 Spain has often suffered from the ravages of locusts. So recently as 

 May, IS-il, an article in the Consiitidionnd French newspaper states as 

 follows : " Such immense quantities of locusts have appeared this year in 

 Spain that they threaten in some places entirely to destroy the crops. At 

 Daimiel, in the province of Ciudad-Real, three hundred persons are con- 

 stantly employed in collecting these destructive insects, and though they 

 destroy seventy or eighty sacks every day, they do not appear to diminish. 

 There is something frightful in the appearance of these locusts proceeding 

 in divisions, some of which are a league in length and 2000 paces in 

 breadth. It is sufficient if these terrilile colunms stop half an hour on 

 any spot, for every thing growing on it — vines, olive-trees, and corn — to 

 be entirely destroyed. After they have passed, nothing remains but the 

 large branches and the roots, which, being under grounil, have escaped 

 their voracity." And in a late work of travels in the same country we 

 find the following passage : — •" During our ride (from Cordova to Seville), 

 we observed a number of men advancing in skirmishing order across the 

 country, and thrashing the ground most savagely with long flails. Curious 

 to know what could be the motives for this Xerxes-like treatment of the 

 earth, we turned out of the road to inspect their operations, and found 

 they were driving a swarm of locusts into a wide piece of linen, spread on 

 the ground some distance before them, wherein they were made prisoners. 

 These animals are about three times the size of an English grasshopper. 

 They migrate from Africa, and their spring visits are very deslructi^'e ; for 

 in a single night they will entirely eat up a field of corn."* 



1 Southey's Thalaha, i. 171. 



2 Gen. xvi. 12. ^ Jackson's Travels in Marocco, 54. 



^ Scott's Excursions in the Mountaijis of Ronda and Granada, The same plan is 

 adopted for tlie destruction of these insects in some parts of the United States; 

 deep trenches being dug at the end of fields into which the grasshoppers are di'iven 

 with branches, and then destroyed by throwing the earth upon them. 



