AND THE NILE 



147 



bush fires. Gradually, however, these clouds grow and spread out into the 

 skv until tliey are seen to be composed of millions of locusts. The 

 obscurity of a yellow London fog begins to tinge the landscape, sucking 

 up all its brightness. Looking into the sky, the eye sees nothing but 

 myriads of locusts diminishing in perspective from a hideous object three 

 inches long just above one's nose to copper-coloured pin-points, and then 

 to a copper-coloured haze. It is sickening to have to ride through these 



'.-%t 







. / V' 



119. BASTAKI) HAKTEIJEE.ST ON NILE liA.NK.S 



%\ :. 



whizzing millions. They settle on your hair, on your hands, on your 

 back, and I personally feel an inclination to vomit as I look at their 

 monstrous horse-heads with the oblong, unintelligent eyes, and when I 

 feel in contact with my skin the scratchy hooks and spurs of the long 

 limbs. A disagreeable smell also accompanies these jostled millions of 

 gluttonous insects. After a while the copper atmosphere may thin until 

 at last the blue sky and sunshine appear again. The flight of locusts 

 will now have settled on all the trees and herbage in the vicinity. It 

 would seem as though some god had peppered all this beautiful vegetation 

 with a sad reddish grey substance. 80 closely do the locusts on bare 

 branches resemble dry seed pods or withered leaf ;shoots that you often 

 take them to be such until, at your approach, hundreds of them swoo{) 

 from the tree and bang into your face, leaving the poor stripped branches 

 bare of any leaf or flower. 



These Nile countries are farther ravaged annually during the protracted 

 •dry season by bush fires. These may be started fifty times in a 

 •century by lightning setting fire to the stump .of] a tree, and spreading 



