INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 163 



empire, it behoves every one to lay in provision for a famine, for they stay 

 from three to seven years. When they have devoured all other vegeta- 

 bles, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves and then the bark. 

 From Mogador to Tangier, before the plague in- 1799, the face of the 

 earth was covered by them : — at that time a singular incident occurred at 

 El Araiche. The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was 

 ravaged by them ; but on the other side of the river El Kos not one of 

 them was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying 

 over it. Till then they had proceeded northward ; but upon arriving at 

 its banks they turned to the east, so that ail the country north of El 

 Araiche was full of pulse, fruits, and grain — exhibiting a most striking 

 contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district. At length they were 

 all carried by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean ; the shore, as 

 in former instances, was covered by their carcasses, and a pestilence was 

 caused by the horrid stench w hich they emitted : but when this evil 

 ceased, their devastations were followed by a most abundant crop. The 

 Arabs of the Desert, " whose hands are against every man^," and who 

 rejoice in the evil that befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds 

 of locusts proceeding from the north, are filled with gladness, anticipating 

 a general mortality, which they call El-Khere (the benediction) ; for, 

 when a country is thus laid waste, they emerge from their arid deserts and 

 pitch their tents in the desolated plains.^ — The neighboring kingdom of 

 Spain has often suffered from the ravages of locusts. So recently as May, 

 1841, an article in the Constitutionel French newspaper states as follows: 

 " Such immense quantities of locusts have appeared this year in Spain 

 that they threaten in some places entirely to destroy the crops. At Dai- 

 miel, in the province of Ciudad-Real, three hundred persons are constantly 

 employed in collecting these destructive insects, and though they destroy 

 seventy or eighty sacks everyday, they do not appear to diminish. There 

 is something frightful in the appearance of these locusts proceeding in 

 divisions, some of which are a league in length and 2000 paces in breadth. 

 It is sufficient if these terrible columns stop half an hour on any spot, for 

 every thing growing on it — vines, olive-trees, and corn — to be entirely 

 destroyed. After they have passed, nothing remains but the large branches 

 and the roots, which being under ground have escaped their voracity." 

 And in a late work of travels in the same country we find the following 

 passage : — " During our ride (from Cordova to Seville) we observed a 

 number of men advancing in skirmishing order across the country, and 

 thrashing the ground most savagely with long flails. Curious to know 

 what could be the motives for this Xerxes-like treatment of the earth, we 

 turned out of the road to inspect their operations, and found they were 

 driving a swarm of locusts into a wide piece of linen, spread on the ground 

 some distance before them, wherein they were made prisoners. These 

 animals are about three times the size of an English grasshopper. They 

 migrate from Africa, and their spring visits are very destructive; for in a 

 single night they will entirely eat up a field of corn.""' 



* Gen. xvi. 12. « Jackson's Travels in Morocco, 54. 



' Scott's Excursions in the Mountains of Ronia and Granada. The same plan is adopted 

 for the destruction of these insects in some parts of the United States ; Deep trenches being 

 dug at the end of fields into which the grasshoppers are driven with branches, and then 

 destroyed by throwing the earth apon them. 



