760 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



OUR EXCAVATIONS CHOKED BY THE 

 INSECTS 



The coming of the grasshoppers had a 

 disastrous effect upon our work of exca- 

 vation. The insects jumped into the dig- 

 gings in hordes, falling over the perpen- 

 dicular edges in a steady stream. . Cross- 

 ing the bottom of the excavations in their 

 usual persistent manner, they tried again 

 and again to climb the steep walls, only 

 to grow weary before reaching the top, 

 and so to fall back once more. Thus they 

 piled up to a depth of a foot or two in 

 every excavation. At first we tried to 

 have them shoveled out, but the accumu- 

 lation of a single night could scarcely be 

 removed in a day. As most of our work 

 was finished, we merely shoveled earth 

 into the pits to cover the loathsome, dying 

 mass of insects. Once in the bottom of 

 a deep, round well sunk in exploring the 

 ruins, we found a large snake buried in 

 a seething, squirming, ever-deepening 

 mass of living death from which his 

 writhing head alone protruded. 



There was one excavation which we 

 determined not to abandon at once. As 

 quickly as pOssible,-which was not till the 

 end of the second day, we procured 

 cheese-cloth and stretched it across the 

 top of the excavation. The grasshop- 

 pers crossed by legions, their shadows 

 darkening the cloth, and the sound of 

 their hopping was like the patter of heavy 

 rain on a roof. 



The work of cleaning out grasshoppers 

 was intensely disagreeable. Even in the 

 upper portions of the excavation the in- 

 sects swarmed everywhere, and it was 

 continually necessary to brush the sticky 

 creatures from hands, arms, head, and 

 neck. 



The Turkoman laborers were clad in 

 baggy white cotton trousers of the com- 

 mon full Turkish type, worn without un- 

 derclothes. To stand in such garments 

 amid the grasshoppers and shovel them 

 into buckets or bags while the creatures 

 crawled everywhere must have been al- 

 most unendurable. Every few minutes 

 the men stopped to remove the clinging 



insects from inside their clothes. Never- 

 theless not only did those who were at 

 work keep on faithfully, but scores of 

 others, seeing that the grasshoppers had 

 consumed their sustenance for the year, 

 pleaded piteously for an opportunity to 

 earn something to support their wives 

 and children. 



The visitation came to an end at length, 

 and the grasshoppers passed on into the 

 desert. The land was left reaped — con- 

 sumed, as it were, by fire. There was a 

 strange stillness in the air, and though 

 our tents were pitched in what had been 

 the fruitful grain fields of an oasis, we 

 seemed to be in the midst of the great 

 desert. 



When the locusts were gone and the 

 Turkomans were left idle, discouraged, 

 and moody, it was easy to see how the 

 precarious conditions of Turkoman life 

 have contributed to the formation of the 

 warlike, plundering character for which 

 the people of the desert are noted. Little 

 groups of malcontents gathered here and 

 there and began to talk against the Rus- 

 sian government. "How shall we live?" 

 they said. "We cannot plunder our 

 neighbors, as our fathers did, for the 

 Great White King has his soldiers every- 

 where. We have no flocks, for since the 

 Russians persuaded us to settle in the 

 oases permanently, we have kept only a 

 few sheep. If we and our little ones 

 starve, it is the fault of the Russians. 

 Give us the old free days again." 



Devoid of genuine foundation as such 

 mutterings may be, they nevertheless can- 

 not be lightly disregarded. Probably the 

 Turkomans are as comfortable today as 

 in the past, and possibly more so, for the 

 Russian rule is far from oppressive ; but 

 such a thought is remote from the minds 

 of the Turkomans. Now, as in the past, 

 when pitiless nature causes them to suf- 

 fer, they strive to fix the blame upon 

 man, and to retrieve their fortunes by in- 

 flicting pain upon those whom they deem 

 their enemies. Only the conquest of the 

 desert can free them from the constantly 

 recurring menace of hunger. 



