with them: a singular incident then occurred at E l A ra ich e ' the whole coun try from the confines o f Sahara to that place was ravaged b y them, but after crossing the riv er El Kos,* they were not to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent them from flying across i t ; moreover, they were all moving that way, that is to the north ; but when they reached the banks o f the river, they proceeded eastward, so that the gardens and fields north o f El A ra iche were full o f vegetables, fruits, and grain. T he Arabs o f the province o f El Garbf- considered this remarkable circumstance as an evident interposition o f Providence Th is curse o f heaven can on ly be conceived by those who have seen the dismal effects o f their devastation: t the poor people b y liv in g on them, become .meagre and indolent, for no labour w ill yield fruit, whilst the locusts continue increasing in numbers. In the rainy season th e y p ar tia lly disappear, and at the opening o f the spring the ground is covered with the ir yo u n g ; those crops o f corn which are first mature, and the grain which becomes hardened before the locust attains its full growth, are lik e ly to escape, provided there be other crops less forward for them to feed upon. . In the year 1799, these destructive insects were carried away into the Western Ocean by a violent hu rric an e ; and the shores were afterwards covered with their dead bodies, which in many places emitted a pestilential sm e ll; that is, wherever the land * The river called Uuccos should be El Kos, so named from its winding through the country in semi-circular forms ; El Kos in Arabic signifies a bow or arch. ■f El Garb (the g guttural) ¡signifies in Arabic the west; this is the western province. was low, or where the salt water had not washed them :• to this event succeeded a most abundant crop o f corn, the lands which had lain fallow for years, being now cu ltiv a ted ; but the produce o f the cultivation was accompanied with a most infectious and deadly plague, a_calamity o f which the locusts ha ve often been observed to be the fore-runners.'f' T he Saharawans, or Arabs o f the Desert, rejoice to see the clouds o f locusts proceed-- * See the Author’s observations on the Plague in Barbary, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, February 1805, page 123. f In the consulship of Marcus Plautius Hypsams, and Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, Africa scarce breathing from bloody wars, a terrible and extraordinary destruction ensued ; for now throughout Africa an infinite multitude of locusts were collected, and having devoured the growing corn, and consumed the vegetables, and leaves of the trees, their tender boughs, and their bark, they were finally driven, by a sudden and tempestuous wind, into the air, and being driven by the wind through the air, at length were drowned in the sea ; their carcases, loathsome and pur trified, being cast up by the waves of the sea in immense heaps, in all parts of the shoie, bred an incredible and infectious smell, after which followed so general a pestilence of all living creatures, that the dead bodies of cattle, wild beasts, and fowls, corrupted by dissolution, filled the atmosphere with a contagious miasma, and augmented the fury of the plague; but how great and extraordinary a death of men there was, I cannot but tremble to report; in Numidia, where Micipsa was the king, died eighty thousand persons: on the sea-coast, near Carthage and Utica, about two hundred thousand are reported to have perished; from the city of Utica itself were, by this means, swept from the face of the earth thirty thousand soldiers, who were appointed to be the garrison of Africa, and the destruction was so violent, according to report, that from one gale of Utica were carried to be buried, in one and the same day, the bodies of above fifteen hundred of the aforesaid soldiers ; so that by the grace of God (through whose mercy, and in confidence of whom I speak o f these events), I boldly affirm that sometimes, even in our days, the locusts do much mischief, yet never before happened, in the time of the Christians, a calamity so insupportable, as this scourge of locusts, which, when alive, were insufferable, and after their death, produced much more pernicious consequences, which, if they had lived, would have destroyed every vegetable thing; but being dead, destroyed, through the plague which they produced, all earthly creatures. Vide Paulus Orosius contra Paganos, Lib. V, Cap. ii. P
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