82 LOCUSTS. CH. IT. 



in most directions one may ride two or three miles before 

 encountering any other vegetation than a few paltry 

 attempts at cultivating vegetables for the table within 

 little enclosed plots, whose owners are constantly disputing 

 the ground with the intrusive sand. The chief break in 

 the monotony of the sand ridges is due to the small stream 

 of the Oued Kseb (called Oued el-Grhoreb on Beaudouin's 

 map), which reaches the sea little more than a mile away 

 on the south side of the town. Much of the water being 

 diverted, the current is not strong enough to keep a 

 channel through the sands, but forms at its mouth a marsh, 

 where many of the most interesting plants of the neigh- 

 bourhood are to be found. The drip from the small 

 aqueduct that supplies water to the town suffices to give 

 nourishment to other less uncommon species. 



Mogador has long been tolerably Well known to bo- 

 tanists. It was visited by Broussonet at the latter end of 

 the last century, and was for some time the residence of 

 Schousboe. More recently the neiglibourhood has been 

 explored by the late IMr. Lowe and b)- M. Balansa. We 

 could not, therefore, reasonably expect, to find here aujthing 

 new to science; but our short excursion was nevertheless 

 full of interest, though not altogether of an agreeable 

 kind. We here saw for the first time a district recently 

 ravaged by locusts ; and while we acquired a lively sense 

 of the amount of mischief effected by these destructive 

 creatures, we also found out how it happens that the 

 damage is confined within tolerable limits ; how, in short, 

 they fail to turn the country into a desert. When one 

 reads the reports of credible eye-witnesses, who describe 

 the arrival of swarms of locusts that devour every green 

 thing, one asks oneself how it can be possible for man or 

 animals to survive such destruction. In the first place, it 

 may be remarked that, like most other sweeping state- 

 ments, these are not strictly true. The locusts do not, in 

 point of fact, devour every green thing. In the spots 

 where they were most destructive we always remarked 



