118 LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD. 



large tent. The next day the family returned 

 loaded with locusts, and, judging by the eye of 

 the quantity produced, there must have been 

 about fifteen bushels. This may appear to be 

 a large quantity to be gathered in so short a 

 time ; but it is scarcely worth mentioning when 

 compared with the loads of them gathered, 

 sometimes, in the more fertile, part of the coun- 

 try over which they pass, leaving a track of 

 desolation behind them. But as they were the 

 first, in any considerable quantity, that I had 

 seen, and the first I had seen cooked and eaten, 

 I mention it in this place ; hoping hereafter to 

 give my readers more particular information 

 concerning these wonderful and destructive in- 

 sects, which, from the days of Moses to this 

 time, have been considered, by Jews and Ma- 

 hometans, as the most severe judgment which 

 Heaven can inflict upon man. But whatever 

 the Egyptians might have thought in ancient 

 days, or the Moors and Arabs in those of mo- 

 dern date, the Arabs who are compelled to in- 

 habit the desert of Zahara,so far from consider- 

 ing a flight of locusts as a judgment upon them 

 for their transgressions, welcome their approach 

 as the means, sometimes, of saving them from 



