CH. XII. J THE LOCUST, ETC. 171 



man author has made a rough estimate of a swarm, 

 which in the year 1693 covered four square miles 

 of ground. He made out that, when he trod on the 

 ground, at least three were crushed, and that in a 

 square German measure, less than an English foot, 

 ten were destroyed ; and after determining the num- 

 ber of these square measures in the four square 

 miles, he concludes that ninety-two billions one 

 hundred and sixty millions of locusts were congre- 

 gated on that surface. This is altogether a mod- 

 erate calculation, for not only is their number more 

 compact in breadth, but they are often piled knee 

 high on the earth. 



No wonder, then, that the swarms which visited 

 the Islands of Formosa and Tayowan, in 1645, 

 caused by their numbers such a famine, that 8,000 

 men died of hunger; or that the heaps of rotten car- 

 casses, washed on the shore by the sea, caused, ac- 

 cording to St. Augustine, such a plague, that in the 

 kingdom of Massinissa alone, 800,000 perished. 

 Franc. Alvarez, in his Itinerario ^Ethiopico, states, 

 that when in that country, such a host of locusts 

 gathered there, that they expelled the inhabitants of 

 the district, who were unwilling to resort to the 

 means which would have destroyed this pest, lest 

 by so doing they should be thought to rebel against 

 this punishment of the Deity. They witnessed the 

 destruction of all things with sighs and wringing of 

 hands, and at last were driven from, their homes to 

 preserve their lives. The melancholy spectacle 

 moved Alvarez much. 



The accounts of their ravages, published during 

 the last century, give the liveliest picture of their 

 devastations. 



Hungary, 9th June, 1748. The misery is hourly 

 increasing. The inhabitants are now obliged to 

 sell their kine, for there is no longer any grass to 

 feed them with, and instead of it, the locusts are 

 covering the fields knee deep. 



