102 LOCUSTID^ — LOCUSTS. 



and they shall not break their ranks; neither shall one 

 thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path ; and 

 whes they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded. 

 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon 

 the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses ; they shall 

 enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake 

 before them, the heavens shall tremble ; the sun' and the 

 moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shin- 

 ing." The usual way in which they are destroyed is also 

 noticed by the prophet. **I will remove far off from 

 you the northern army, and will drive him into aland barren 

 and desolate, with his face towards the east sea, and his 

 hinder part towards the utmost sea, and his stink shall 

 come up, because he hath done great things."^ 



Paulus Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3800, 

 during the consulship of M. Plautius Hypsseus, and M. Ful- 

 vius Flaccus, such infinite myriads of Locusts were blown 

 from the coast of Africa into the sea and drowned, that 

 being cast upon the shore in immense heaps they emitted a 

 stench greater than could have been produced by the car- 

 casses of one hundred thousand men. A general pestilence 

 of all living creatures followed. And so great was this 

 plague in Numidia, where Micipsa was king, that eighty 

 thousand persons died ; and on the sea-coast, near Carthage 

 and Utica, about two hundred thousand were reported to 

 have perished. Thirty thousand soldiers, appointed as the 

 garrison of Africa, and stationed in Utica, were among the 

 number. So violent was the destruction that the bodies of 

 more than fifteen hundred of these soldiers, from one gate 

 of the city, were carried and buried in the same day.'^ 



St. Augustine also mentions a plague to have arisen in 

 Africa from the same cause, which destroyed no less than 

 eight hundred thousand persons (octigenta hominum millia) 

 in the kingdom of Masanissa alone, and many more in the 

 territories bordering upon the sea.* 



Blown from that quarter of the globe, Locusts have oc- 

 casionally visited both Italy and Spain. The former coun- 

 try was severely ravaged by myriads of these desolating in- 



1 Cf. Ex. X. 15; Jer. xlvi. 23; Judg. vi. 5, viii. 12; Nah. iii. 1-3. 



2 .Toel, ii. 2-10, 20. 



3 Oros, Contra Pag., 1. 5, c. 2. 



* Kirb. and Sp. Iiilrod., i. 217; Cuv. An. Kingd. — Ins., ii. 206. 



