JERUSALEM'S LOCUST PLAGUE 



535 



(year of the locusts) when I was young. 

 In four minutes they left all the olive 

 trees as wood." 



He walked away seemingly amused at 

 our optimism, while we smiled, not know- 

 ing from experience, as he did, the truth 

 of his apparent exaggerations. 



allah's armies 



It is interesting to note that the natives 

 all speak of them as "Jaish Allah" (God's 

 army), they even finding the word 

 "askar" (soldier) written in the Arabic 

 characters upon the wings of the invad- 

 ing locusts. In the same way they were 

 looked upon by the Hebrews of old. 

 Thus : "The Lord shall utter his voice 

 before his army : for his camp is very 

 great" (Joel 2: 11). 



From the "Hadith," or books contain- 

 ing the collected oral sayings of Mo- 

 hammed, with explanations, we translate 

 the following: "Do not kill the locusts 

 because they are the host of God the 

 Most Mighty." It was so said (thus it is 

 explained) provided they did not attempt 

 to spoil the grain fields (that is, of the 

 Mohammedans). For (so the story 

 runs) a locust fell between the two hands 

 of the Apostle (Mohammed), and it was 

 written on its two wings in Hebrew : "We 

 are the host of God the Most Mighty, 

 and we have ninety-nine eggs, and had 

 the hundredth remained to us we should 

 have eaten the world with all that is in 

 it." Therefore the "Apostle" said : "Our 

 God, destroy the locust ; kill its great 

 ones and cause to die its little ones, and 

 corrupt its eggs, and close their mouths 

 against the plantings of the Mohammed- 

 ans and their places of getting a living." 



FIGHTING THE LOCUSTS 



A few words of our personal experi- 

 ence fighting locusts may not be amiss. 



At first the locusts, already having 

 marched a considerable distance from 

 the place of hatching, were found in end- 

 less columns "as a strong people set in 

 battle array" (Joel 2:5). It was now 

 easy to entrap them. In their path was 

 sunk a bottomless box, the inside lined 

 with shining tin, up which the locusts 

 could not crawl, while on each side a 

 wing was provided, similarly prepared 



with a smooth metal face, with the object 

 of directing them into the box. 



The fighters now made two long lines, 

 one on each side of the trap. To noise 

 and racket the locusts seemed only to 

 turn a deaf ear ; but a large flag — the 

 darker the better — with which to cast a 

 deep shadow upon the ground, proved to 

 be the most formidable tool one could 

 employ to make them move in the desired 

 direction ; in fact, countless numbers 

 could thus be guided and held in check if 

 one but anticipated the general direction 

 they wished to go (see page 530). 



As long as they came in these endless 

 chains, with but a little guiding their 

 ranks could be narrowed and practically 

 driven from morning to night into the 

 sunken box (see page 531). Now and 

 then the trap would have to be emptied ; 

 or if the place the trap was set was to 

 be abandoned in favor of a better posi- 

 tion, it was an easy matter when this 

 bottomless box was almost full to raise 

 it out of the ground, leaving the locusts 

 behind in the hole, and then hurriedly 

 bury the contents. It was found by ac- 

 tual test that when thus buried in great 

 masses they quickly died, and in 24 hours 

 would develop into a putrid mass. 



As the evening advanced they became 

 sluggish and hard to move, and would 

 crawl under individual stones, such as the 

 fields are full of, or into small piles of 

 rock and the common rubble walls ; but 

 by the morning again instinct would have 

 rejoined them into bands moving together 

 on their plans of destruction. 



However, toward the end of their pupa 

 stage their columns became shorter and 

 less constant. They seemed to form into 

 smaller pillaging groups, with only the 

 acquisition of food in view. Now it be- 

 came more troublesome to trap them, as 

 they had grown large and wary. Often, 

 after anticipating their course and while 

 sinking the trap into the hard and rocky 

 soil, they would become alarmed and, 

 turning tail, escape in all directions. 



TRAPPING THE LOCUSTS 



One evening while trapping them on 

 the upper side of the hill we learned just 

 in time that an immense number were 

 just about to enter the property from the 



