190 



INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean ; the shore, as 

 in former instances, was covered by their carcasses, and a pes- 

 tilence was caused by the horrid stench which they emitted : 

 but when this evil ceased, their devastations were followed 

 by a most abundant crop. The Arabs of the Desert, " whose 

 hands are against every man^,'' and who rejoice in the evil 

 that befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds of 

 locusts proceeding from the north, are filled with gladness, 

 anticipating a general mortality, which they call El-Kliere 

 (the benediction) ; for, when a country is thus laid waste, they 

 emerge from their arid deserts and pitch their tents in the 

 desolated plains.^ — ^The neighbouring kingdom of Spain has 

 often suffered from the ravages of locusts. So recently as 

 May, 1841, an article in the Constitutionel French newspaper 

 states as follows : " Such immense quantities of locusts have 

 appeared this year in Spain that they threaten in some places 

 entirely to destroy the crops. At Daimiel, in the province of 

 Ciudad-Real, three hundred persons are constantly employed 

 in collecting these destructive insects, and though they destroy 

 seventy or eighty sacks every day, they do not appear to 

 diminish. There is something frightful in the appearance of 

 these locusts proceeding in divisions, some of which are a 

 league in length and 2000 paces in breadth. It is sufficient 

 if these terrible columns stop half an hour on any spot, for 

 every thing growing on it — vines, olive-trees, and corn — to 

 be entirely destroyed. After they have passed, nothing 

 remains but the large branches and the roots, which being 

 under ground have escaped their voracity." And in a late 

 work of travels in the same country we find the following 

 passage : — " During our ride (from Cordova to Seville) we 

 observed a number of men advancing in skirmishing order 

 across the country, and thrashing the ground most savagely 

 with long flails. Curious to know what could be the motives 

 for this Xerxes-like treatment of the earth, we turned out of 

 the road to inspect their operations, and found they were 

 driving a swarm of locusts into a wide piece of linen, spread 

 on the ground some distance before them, wherein they were 



1 Gen. xvi. 12. 2 Jackson's Travels in Marocco, 54. 



