238 AFRICA SPEAKS 



visitations, I surmised this to be a swarm of locusts, 

 and this proved to be the fact. Late that evening 

 before the humming mass had reached our camp, we 

 were able to compute its length and breadth by 

 familiar landmarks along the Laikipia escarpment and 

 estimated the cloud to be about twenty-five miles 

 wide and sixty miles long. A small part of this 

 tremendous multitude of insects came to rest around 

 our encampment, feeding all tlirough the night, so 

 that when morning came we found the district abso- 

 lutely devastated. This offered an opportunity for 

 an unusual film, and I abandoned the balance of my 

 plans in the Baringo area in order to follow the locusts, 

 eventually securing some marvelous material of this 

 insect plague near our old camp in Tanganyika. 



