INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 219 



Dr. Clarke, to give some idea of tlie infinite num- 

 bers of these animals, compares them to a flight of snow 

 when the flakes are carried obliquely by the wind. 

 They covered his carriage and horses, and the Tartars 

 assert that people are sometimes suffocated by them. 

 The whole face of nature might have been described 

 as covered by a living veil. They consisted of two 

 species, G. taiaricus and migratorius, L. ; the first is 

 almost twice the size of the second, and, because it 

 precedes it, is called by the Tartars the herald or mes- 

 senger ''. — 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 lite- 

 rally 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 Morocco was ter- 

 ribly devastated by them, every green thing was eaten 

 up, not even the bitter bark of the orange and pome- 

 granate escaping — a most dreadful famine ensued. — 

 The poor were seen to v/ander over the country deriv- 

 ing a miserable subsistence from the roots of plants ; 

 and women and children followed the camels, from 

 whose dung they picked the indigested grains of barley, 

 which they devoured with avidity : in consequence of 

 this, vast numbers perished, and the roads and streets 

 exhibited the unburied carcases of the dead. On this 



* Travels, i. 348, ^ *> Travels, &c. 257. 



