LOCUSTS AND GRASSHOPPERS (ACRIDJID^). 121 



course of doing this they paused for some time at a 

 sudden bend in the river where a number of rocks were 

 cropping- out, as if uncertain whether to risk a passage 

 at this place. However, they at length passed on, as 

 if with the hope of finding a better ford ; in which 

 apparently they were disappointed, for three days later 

 they returned to the same bend, and there plunged in 

 vast multitudes into the stream, where, assisted by a 

 favourable current and the water-plants which grew 

 upon the projecting rocks, they succeeded in effecting 

 a crossing, though great numbers were drowned and 

 carried away by the flooded river ; but these casualties 

 do not count when myriads are advancing. 



Mrs. Barber adds that " Voetgangers " have been 

 known to attempt the passage of the Orange River 

 when it was several hundred yards in breadth, pouring 

 their vast swarms into the flooded stream regardless of 

 the consequences, until they became heaped up upon 

 each other in large bodies. As the living mass in the 

 water accumulated, some pieces of it were swept away 

 by the strong current from the bank to which they were 

 clinging, and as the individuals tightly grasped each 

 other and held together, they became floating islands, 

 the locusts continually hopping and creeping over each 

 other as they drifted away. Whether any of the locust- 

 islands chanced to reach the opposite bank is unknown ; 

 probably some of them were drifted on land again. 



