OETHOPTEEA. 309 



The Arabs have also an infallible means of ridding themselves of 

 the locusts. Here is what General Daumas tells us on the subject. 

 According to Ben- Omar, the Prophet read one day, on the wings 

 of a locust, written in Hebrew characters : " We are the troops 

 of the Most High God ; we each one lay ninety-nine eggs. If we 

 were to lay a hundred we should devastate the whole world/' 

 Upon which Mahomet, greatly alarmed, made an ardent prater, 

 in which he begged God to destroy these enemies of Mussulmans. 

 In answer to this invocation, the angel Gabriel told Mahomet 

 that a part of his prayer should be granted. Since that epoch, 

 indeed, words of invocation to the Prophet, written on a piece of 

 paper, and enclosed in a reed, which is planted in the middle of a 

 wheat-field or orchard, have the power of turning away the locusts.* 

 This receipt is infallible, at least so say the devout Mussulmans. 



There exists another quite as efficacious. They take four locusts, 

 and write on the wings of each a verse of the Koran (four verses 

 of the Koran are appropriated to this purpose). They then let 

 the locusts thus marked fly into the midst of the swarm, and the 

 flying army immediately takes another direction. 



By what the Arabs say, the locusts possess a number of virtues. 

 When you see them in a dream, they announce the future ; if you 

 dream that you are eating them, it is a good omen ; if you dream 

 that it rains golden locusts, God will restore to you that which 

 you have lost, &c. When Omar-ben-el-Khottal was Caliph, the 

 locusts seemed to have completely disappeared. There was great 

 sadness in the country in consequence. The Caliph especially 

 was very much afflicted at it. He sent carriers into Yemen, into 

 Cham, and into Irak, to see if they could not find a few. One 

 of the envoyes succeeded in his mission, and brought back a 

 handful of locusts. " God is great ! " cried Omar, who from 

 that day had no more misgivings. In order to understand first 

 the despair and then the satisfaction of the Caliph Omar, it is 

 written, so say the Mussulmans, that the human race will dis- 

 appear from the earth after the extinction of the locusts. That 

 these insects were formed of the rest of the clay out of which man 

 had been formed, and that they were destined to serve him as food. 



* " Le Grand Desert," par le General E. Daumas et E. de Chaucel, in 18mo. Paris. 

 1860. 



