A heavy punishment, at the same time, was inflicted upon those
who neglected this useful precaution, as though they had been
guilty of an unpardonable crime against their sovereign and their
country. In Lemnos, also, there was a measure established to
regulate the quantity which each man should kill; and every
person was obliged to give in his account to the magistrate, and to
produce his measure full of dead locusts*.
I t may easily be conceived, from, these relations, what consternation
and dismay is excited among the inhabitants of a cultivated
country by the appearance of a large swarm of locusts. The
mischief, however, occasioned at IVlesurata by those which we have
mentioned above, was not by any means so great, we are happy to
say, as might have been reasonably expected: and the Arabs of the
place were soon as busily employed in eating their formidable
invaders, as they had at first been in preserving their crops from
experiencing a similar fate.
On the 2nd December, after repeated promises and disappointments,
our camels at length arrived; and having made suitable
presents to Shekh Belcazi and his son, we prepared to continue our
journey. We had few difficulties to encounter in our dealings
with the people of Mesurata; and we must confess that we found
in their Shekh, notwithstanding his occasional evasions, more openness
and honesty than are usually met with in the inhabitants of
Mahometan countries.
* Nat. Hist. lib. xi. c. *29.