DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 301 



was informed that at Mecca, when there was a scarcity 

 oi corn, as a substitute for flour they would grind locusts 

 in their hand-mills, or pound them in stone mortars ; 

 that they mixed this flour with water into a douffh, and 

 made their cakes of it, which they baked like their other 

 bread. Fie adds, that it is not unusual for them to eat 

 locusts when there is no famine ; but then they boil 

 them first a good while in water, and afterwards stew 

 them with butter into a kind of fricassee of no bad fla- 

 vour 3 . Leo Afiicanus, as quoted by Bochart, gives a 

 similar account b . Sparrman informs us that the Hot- 

 tentots are highly rejoiced at the arrival of the locusts in 

 their country, although they destroy all its verdure, eat- 

 ing them in such quantities as to get visibly fatter than 

 before, and making of their eggs a brown or cofFee-co- 

 loured soup. He also relates a curious notion which 

 they have with respect to the origin of the locusts — that 

 they proceed from the good will of a great master-con- 

 juror a long way to the north, who, having removed the 

 stone from the mouth of a certain deep pit, lets loose 

 these animals to be food for them c . This is not unlike 

 the account given by the author of the Apocalypse, of the 

 origin of the symbolical locusts, which are said to ascend 

 upon an angel's opening the pit of the abyss d . Clenard, 

 in his letters quoted by Bochart, says that they bring 

 wap-fifon-loads of locusts to Fez, as a usual-article of food c . 

 Major Moor informs me, that when the cloud of locusts 

 noticed in a former letter visited the Mahratta country, 

 the common people salted and ate them. This was an- 

 ciently the custom with many of the African nations, 



a Travels, 232. h Hieroz. ii. 1. 14. c. 7- c Sparrman, i. 367. 



d Her. ix. 2. 3. e Hieroz. ii, I."4. c. 7- 492. 



