334 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



rugs, covering the entire floor of that huge building, formed a 

 picture which it would indeed be difficult to equal. The vast 

 proportions of the interior, the grand arches, noble dome, the 

 rich decorations, mosaics, and inscriptions could hardly keep the 

 eye away from the multitude of men, women, and childen 

 temporary exiles which occupied every inch of the floor. 



Nature in her most prolific and wasteful mood produced a 

 spectacle difficult to believe possible unless witnessed, and no 

 description, however graphic, could give a true idea of a locust 

 swarm as it passes over a country. Travelling in a train in 

 South Africa, we suddenly entered what had looked in the 

 distance like a very dense black cloud moving just above the 

 ground. The cloud proved alive, myriads and myriads of locusts 

 swarming ; they obscured the sun, threatened to fill the carriage, 

 and actually stopped the train, the crushed insects rendering 

 the rails so slippery that the wheels would not " bite." When 

 the swarm had at last passed not a vestige of herbage was to be 

 seen. One cannot help wondering why Nature should be so 

 extravagantly and apparently recklessly wasteful with certain of 

 her creatures called to life in untold millions for no purpose 

 apparently except to annoy mankind. Indeed, it would appear 

 almost as if man were specially brought into the world for the 

 benefit and amusement of these most irritating pests ! Locusts 

 in their destroying swarms leave nothing uneaten everything 

 green is devoured, all crops disappear. Natives retaliate as 

 much as they can by eating as many as possible, nicely frizzled 

 on a hot plate a very minute consolation after seeing their 

 fields laid bare ! 



And those many other creatures, in their millions and trillions, 

 of what possible use are they ? They apparently do not afford 

 nourishment to other beings. What benefit to anybody or 

 anything are those clouds of midges which suddenly rise born 

 out of the waters of Victoria Nyanza, teeming multitudes 

 which obscure the sun, cover the deck of the steamer inches 

 thick, to die without loss of time there and on the sur- 

 rounding water ? What can be the use of such waste of life, 

 except to annoy passengers and the crew which has to sweep 

 them up ? 



And those brutes, mosquitoes, gnats, the various kinds of sand 

 and black flies, with what object are they sent into the world 



