JERUSALEM'S LOCUST PLAGUE 



541 



the ground and to open one for the sup- 

 posed customer to see and taste. Once 

 this son of evil had sampled the first skin 

 he got the owner to hold the mouth shut 

 while he should examine its mate. Hav- 

 ing done so, he now pretended to wish 

 to retaste the contents of the first skin, 

 for which reason the owner held the 

 second closed with his other hand. Thus 

 the oil vendor found himself, both hands 

 engaged, squatting between the two skins 

 of oil, while the son of evil rode away 

 on the donkey.-" 



Essa smiled and his beady eyes again 

 twinkled. "'You see," he added, "while 

 I am holding the locusts at bay on this 

 west side, they are entering over the 

 south wall, and I am in the same dilemma 

 as the fellah who had both hands occu- 

 pied holding the oil skins shut, and 

 should he drop them to rescue the don- 

 key the oil would naturally spill." 



Visiting Essa the next day, it was ob- 

 served that half the bean patch had dis- 

 appeared, for despite Essa and our com- 

 bined efforts the tenderer plants through- 

 out the garden were slowly vanishing. 

 Charring Essa in fun for thus yielding the 

 bean patch to the ravages of so weak a 

 foe, he again stopped his work (few 

 Arabs can work and talk at the same 

 time, the hands being needed to gesticu- 

 late with) and answered with a parable, 

 which ran thus : 



"A certain hunter secured a living by 

 making shepherds' flutes of bones taken 

 from eagles' wings. One day. being with- 

 out his gun. by chance he stumbled upon 

 a carcass on which a number of eagles 

 were perched, stupefied from overeating. 

 Crawling stealthily up, he seized the legs 

 of the two largest birds. They struggled 

 to escape ; then, flapping their wings, 

 started raising the hunter gently from the 

 ground. Still so riveted were his thoughts 

 upon the eight flutes he was going to 

 make from their bones and the two mege- 

 dies* he would get for each, that he did 

 not realize his danger till too late. Look- 

 ing down, he now saw the earth slowly 

 receding from below him, when he heard 

 a faint voice from a passer-by saying : 

 'Let go of one and hold on to one.' He 



*A megedie is a Turkish dollar, equaling 

 about 83 cents. 



did so, and one eagle, unable alone to 

 sustain his weight, brought him to the 

 earth safely, with one eagle bagged. So 

 you see," Essa drew the lesson, "half a 

 bean patch is better than none, just like 

 the common saying, 'Half a stomach full 

 removes the necessity of having a full 

 one.' " 



HAVOC CAUSED BY YOUNG FLYING LTJCUSTS 



In the early days of June a few scat- 

 tered locusts of a decided red color were 

 seen about the tree-tops. Some sup- 

 posed them to be a kind of grasshopper, 

 for they were so different in color to the 

 fliers that first came and laid their eggs 

 that it was difficult to detect in them the 

 resemblance to the parents. 



On the 10th of June the air all at once 

 was filled with quantities of these new 

 flying locusts, with the thin transparent 

 wings, producing the effect of a large- 

 flaked snow-storm. It was at first hard 

 to realize that these had not, as most sup- 

 posed, flown in from elsewhere, but right 

 under our eyes had been transformed 

 from the small, creeping locusts — a pro- 

 cess we shall soon describe {see page 



543)- . 



During the day they kept busily hov- 

 ering about from tree to tree or alight- 

 ing on some green patch, while toward 

 evening they settled for the night by 

 myriads upon the olive trees, almost cov- 

 ering them and transforming the dark 

 green foliage into a distinctive red ap- 

 pearance. At once they attacked the 

 small berries, which fell to the ground 

 like hail, along with occasional leaves, 

 and as the fliers wrought destruction 

 above, the creepers devoured what fell 

 below : so that on the trees attacked often 

 not a berry was to be found in the morn- 

 ing. 



L"p to this time the olive orchards had 

 suffered comparatively little. The creep- 

 ing locusts had not seemed to care for 

 the tough, bitter leaves while better things 

 were at hand, and as a rule only severely 

 damaged individual trees where other 

 food was scarce. But now that these 

 ravenously hungry, freshly moulted fliers 

 appeared, food had already become 

 scarcer, obliging the creepers to seek the 

 heretofore despised olive, crawling up 



