212 
TRAVELS IN 
birds, generally five in each ; the eggs were of a bluish white 
with small, faint, reddish specks. These birds had here taken 
up a temporary abode on a spot which they were not likely, 
in a short space of time, to be under the necessity of quitting 
for want of food. Of the innumerable multitudes of the in- 
complete insect, or larva, of the locusts, which at this time 
infested this part of Africa, no adequate idea can possibly be 
conceived without having witnessed them. For the space of 
ten miles on each side of the Sea-Cow river, and eighty or 
ninety miles in length, an area of sixteen or eighteen hundred 
square miles, the whole surface of the ground might literally 
be said to be covered with them. The water of the river was 
scarcely visible on account of the dead carcases that floated 
on the surface, which had perished in the attempt to devour 
the reeds that were growing in the water. They had com- 
pletely destroyed every green herb and every blade of grass ; 
and had it not been for the insulated reeds, on which, our 
cattle entirely subsisted while we skirted the banks of the river, 
our journey must have been discontinued, at least in tlie line 
that had been proposed, for want of food for our horses and 
cattle. The larvae, as generally is the case in this class of in- 
sects, are much more voracious than the perfect animal; nothing 
is rejected by them that belongs to the vegetable part of the 
creation. They swarmed in thousands into our tent to de- 
vour the crumbs of bread that fell on the ground, and seized 
with avidity on a mutton-bone. They are not, however, with- 
out a choice in their food. When they attack a field of corn 
just stricken into the ear, they first mount to the summit, and 
pick out every grain before they touch the leaves and the stem. 
In such a state it is lamentable to see the ruins of a fine field 
