THE LOCUST. 219 



space of several leagues. The noise they make in browsing on the 

 trees and herbage, may be heard at a great distance, and resembles 

 that of an army in secret. The Tartars themselves are a less de- 

 structive enemy than these little animals. One would imagine 

 that fire had followed their progress. Wherever their myriads 

 spread, the verdure of the country disappears ; trees and plants 

 stripped of their leaves, and reduced to their naked boughs and 

 stems, cause the dreary image of winter to succeed in an instant to 

 the rich scenery of the spring. When these clouds of locusts take 

 their flight, to surmount any obstacles, or to traverse more rapidly 

 a desert soil, the heavens may literally be said to be obscured with 

 them. Happily this calamity is not frequently repeated, for it is 

 the inevitable forerunner of famine, and the maladies it occasions. 

 The locust is employed in the Book of Revelation, to symbolize 

 the countless and savage hordes that fought under the banners of the 

 Saracen princes : 'And there came out of the smoke locusts upon 

 the earth, and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the 

 earth have power, and their torment was as the torment of a scor- 

 pion, when he striketh a man ; and the shapes of the locusts were 

 like unto horses prepared unto battle ; and on their heads were, as 

 it were, crowns of gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. 

 And they had hair as the hair of women : and their teeth were as 

 the teeth of lions. And they had breast-plates, as it were breast- 

 plates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of 

 chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like 

 scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and they had a king 

 over them,' Rev. ix. 1 12. This remarkable comparison, says 

 Paxton, is almost, in every particular, quite familiar to the Arabs. 

 Niebuhr, in his description of Arabia, informs us, that an Arab of 

 the desert near Bassorah, mentioned to him a singular comparison 

 of the locust with other animals. The terrible locust of this pas- 

 sage not then occurring to him, he regarded the comparison as a 

 jest of the Arab, and paid no attention to it, till it was repeated by 

 another from Bagdad. He compared the head of the locust to that 

 of the horse ; its breast to that of the lion ; its feet to those of the 

 camel ; its body to that of the serpent ; its tail to that of the scorpi- 

 on ; its horns to the locks of hair of a virgin ; and so of the other 

 parts. 



We have already remarked, that almost all writers on natural 

 history notice that the head of a locust bears a striking resemblance 

 to that of a horse. The Greeks called it the horse of the earth. 

 Accoutred for war, and mounted by a stern and bearded warrior, 

 the Arabian charger has a majestic and terrible appearance : not less 

 dreadful to the inhabitants of the east is the locust, in all the vigor 

 of youth, ready to commence his destructive march. The Saracen 

 furnished his horse with a silver bridle, and gilt trappings, and cov- 

 ered his neck and breast with plates of iron : it is, therefore, not 

 improbable, that he adorned his head with some ornament resem- 

 bling a crown, to which the horns or antennae of the locust may net 



