LOCUST. 
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extent, and so completely that the surface appeared 
to the eye, at a little distance, to have been burned 
and strewed over with brown ashes. Not a shrub 
nor blade of grass was visible. The waggons passed 
directly through them, before which they rose up 
in a cloud that darkened the air on each side. De- 
sirous of seeing the whole troop on the wing, the 
Hottentots ran amongst them, and the horses were 
made to gallop through them, but without success ; 
none but such as were immediately under the feet 
of the men and horses rose up. In all other parts 
they remained firm on the ground. The peasantry 
pretend that they are not to be driven away unless 
the signal for departure should be given from their 
commander in chief, one of which is supposed to 
accompany every troop.” 
Wherever these noxious insects made their ap- 
pearance the crops were destroyed, and not a single 
field of corn remained unconsumed by them. Du- 
ring the year Mr. Barrow was in Africa, a whole 
district was so completely laid waste as not to pro- 
duce a single bushel of grain. But the inhabitants, 
accustomed to this calamity, bear the evil with great 
patience, and console themselves for the loss of their 
corn by killing a double quantity of mutton. 
As Mr. Barrow continued his journey, he met 
with innumerable multitudes of the incomplete in- 
sect, or larva of the locusts. According to this 
gentleman’s account, no adequate idea could pos- 
sibly be conceived of their numbers without having 
seen them. “ For the space of ten miles on each 
