Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1894 — A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS. [ARTICLE]

A FLIGHT OF LOCUSTS.

Vivid Description of Ono of the Plagues of Egypt. I saw for the first time that afternoon a flight of locusts, says Sir Edwin Arnold in the London Telegraph. We were sitting on the hill with our backs turned to the west wind, which was softly blowing from the Mediterranean. The horses were picketed close by grazing the sweet mountain grass. The Arabs of our caravan were cooking a “pillaw” a little distance off. Around us were laid out the wherewithals of a light lunch, among which was an open marmalade jar. I was thinking of Ahab, and wondering how he could put up so long with Elijah, especially when, on this spot, the prophet said to the king, “As the Lord liveth, in this place, where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood—even thine”—when suddenly, right into the marmalade there dropped what I took for a large grasshopper. It was yellow and green, with long jumping legs and a big head, and while I was taking it out of the jar two others fell into a plate of soup, and half-dozen more of the same kind upon a dish of salad. At the same moment my horse stamped violently, and I saw more of these grass-hoppers pelting his locks and haunches. Turning round from whence this insect shower came, I witnessed what was to me an extraordinary spectacle, though common enough, of course, in the east. A large cloud denser in its lower than its upper part, filled an eighth part of the western hemicycle. The remoter portion of it was as thick, as brown, and brumous as a London fog. The nearer side opened suddenly up into millions and billions, and trillions and sextillions of the same green-and-yellow insects, pelting in a close-winged crowd quite as quickly as flakes of snow upon all the hillsides near and far. You could not stand a moment against the aggressive and offensive rain of these buzzing creatures. The horses even swung themselves and stood with lowered crests, taking the storm upon their backs and flanks. You had to turn up the collar of your coat to keep them out of your neck, and button the front not to have your pockets filled with the repulsive swarm, which in two minutes had so peppered the whole scene round about that its color and character were entirely altered. Every little creature of the interminable flight on alighting veered himself round head to wind on the earth, just as if he had dropped anchor and swung to the breeze; and it was curious to notice that the general tint of the ground of their countless bodies was broWn if you looked to windward and green if you gazed to leeward. But very quickly the only green to be seen round about was the hue afforded by this sudden invasion. Even while we prepared to yield up the spot to them and pack our lunch baskets for departure they had cleared off grass and leaves and every verdant thing around; and where they rose again from the soil, or from any clump of trees, in a hungry throng, the place they quitted had already assumed a barren and wintry aspect. The Syrian peasants passing along the roads were beating their breasts and cursing the ill fortune of this plague. Some of them, none the less, gathered up a clothful of the noxious things; for the locust is distinctly edible. Half in wrath and revenge, and half for a novelty in diet, the Arabs to this day eat a few of them, roast them in wire nets or in earthen vessels over a slow fire till the wings and legs drop off and the locust becomes crisp, in which state it tastes, as I am able to say from personal experiment, something like an unsalted prawn. But it seemed as if, had all Syria and the globe itself taken to living on locusts, they would hardly have made a sensible mark upon the extraordinary number that drifted that day over our heads.