INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 219 



Onward they came a dark continuous cloud 

 Of congregated myriads numberless, 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 

 Of a broad river headlong in its course 

 Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks a ! " 



But no account of the appearance and ravages of these 

 terrific insects, for correctness and sublimity, comes near 

 that of the prophet Joel, " A day of darkness and of gloom- 

 iness, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morn- 

 ing spread upon the mountains: a great people and a 

 strong: there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be 

 any more after it, even to the years of many generations. 

 A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame 

 burnetii: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, 

 and behind them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and nothing 

 shall escape them. Like the noise of chariots 5 on the tops 

 of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of 

 fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in 

 battle array. Before their faces the people shall be much 

 pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run 

 like mighty men ; they shall climb the wall like men of war, 

 and they shall march every one on his ways, and they 

 shall not break their ranks ; neither shall one thrust an- 

 other, they shall walk every one in his path : and when 

 they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded. 

 They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon 

 the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses ; they shall 



a Southey's Thalaba, i. 169. 



b Of the symbolical locusts in the Apocalypse it is said — " And the 

 sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, of many horses 

 running to battle." ix. 0, 



