9M B i. I»-?® (Sji! It S i (x- # 1 || w hopper, differs ve ry much from that insect, in the direful effects and devastation it causes in the countries it visits. Dr. Johnson, in his translation o f Lobo’s Abyssinia, has rendered it grasshopper, although it e v id en tly should have been translated locust. Locusts are produced from some unknown physical cause, and proceed from the Desert, always coming from the south. When they visit a country, it behoves e v e ry in dividual to lay in a provision against a famine; for they are said to stay three, five, or seven years. During m y residence in West and South Barbary, those countries suffered'a visitation from them during seven years. T h e y have a government among themselves, similar to that o f the bees and an ts ; and when the (Sultan Jerraad) king o f the locusts rises, the whole b od y follow him, not one solitary straggler being left behind to witness the devastation. When th e y have eaten all other vegetation, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves, and then the bark, so that the country, in the midst o f summer, from their general rapacity, bears the face o f winter. In my travels, I ha ve seen them so thick on the ground, as sometimes a c tu a lly to have covered m y horse’s hoofs, as he went along ; it is v e r y annoying to travel through a host o f them, as they are continually f l y i n g in y o u r face, and settling on you r hands and clothes. A t a distance, they appear, in the air, like an immense cloud, darkening the sun ; and whilst employed in devouring the produce o f the land, it has been observed that th e y uniformly proceed one w a y , as regu larly as a disciplined army on its march ; nor will it be possible to discover a single one going a different w ay from the rest. In tra ve lling from Mogodor to Tan gie r, before the plague in 1 799, the country was covered
27f 39
To see the actual publication please follow the link above