In 1825 the Russian empire was overrun to a very alarming
extent by young Locusts. About Kiew, as far as the eye could reach, they lay piled up one upon another to the height of two feet. Through the government of Ekatharinoslaw and Cherson to the Black Sea, a distance of about 400 miles, they covered the ground so thickly that a horse could not walk fast through them. The sight of such an immense number, says an eye-witness, Mr. Jaeger, of the most destructive and rapacious insects, justly occasioned a melancholy foreboding of famine and pestilence, in case they should invade the cultivated and populous countries of Russia and Poland. It was at this juncture, however, that the Emperor Alexander sent his army of thirty thousand soldiers to destroy them. These forming a line of several hundred miles, and advancing toward the south, attacked them with shovels, and collected them, as far as possible, in sacks and burned them. This is the largest army of soldiers sent against Locusts we have any record of.[357]
In 1824, Locusts made their appearance at the Glen-Lynden Colony in South Africa, being the first time they had been seen there since 1808. In 1825, they continued to advance from the north; in 1826, the corn crops at Glen-Lynden were totally destroyed by them; and in 1827, 1828, and 1829, they extended their ravages through the whole of the northern and southern districts of the colony. In 1830, they again disappeared.[358]
The following graphic description of the swarm that visited Glen-Lynden in 1825 is from the pen of Mr. Pringle. He says: “In returning to Glen-Lynden, we passed through a flying swarm, which had exactly the appearance, as it approached, of a vast snow-cloud hanging on the slope of a mountain from which the snow was falling in very large flakes. When we got into the midst of them, the air all around and above was darkened as by a thick cloud; and the rushing sound of the wings of the millions of these insects was as loud as the dash of a mill-wheel.… The column that we thus passed through was, as nearly as I could calculate, about half a mile in breadth, and from two to three miles in length.”[359]
In 1835, a plague of Locusts made their appearance in China, in the neighborhood of Quangse, and in the western departments of Quangtung. The military and people were ordered out to exterminate them, as they had done two years before. A more rational mode, however, was adopted by the authorities, of offering a bounty of twelve or fifteen cash per catty of the insects. They were gathered so fast for this price, that it was immediately lowered to five or six cash per catty. A strike followed, and the Locusts were left in quiet to do as much damage as they could.[360]
Nieuhoff tells us, Locusts in the East Indies are so destructive that the inhabitants are oftentimes obliged to change their habitations, for want of sustenance. He adds that this has frequently happened in China and the Island of Tojowac.[361]
In 1828–9, in the provinces lying between the Black and Caspian Seas, Locusts appeared in such vast numbers as were never seen in that country before.[362]
In 1839, Kaffraria was again visited by Locusts, which, together with the war at that time, caused so great a famine that many persons perished for want of subsistence.[363] Again in 1849–50, this country was visited by this dreadful scourge. The whole country, says the Rev. Francis Fleming, was covered with them; and when they arose, the cloud was so dense that this gentleman was obliged to dismount, and wait till they passed over.[364]
Mr. Jules Remy says, that at his arrival at Salt Lake, he observed upon the shore, on the top of the salt, a deposit of a foot deep which was entirely composed of dead Locusts—Œdipoda corallipes. These insects, driven by a high wind in prodigiously thick clouds, had been drowned in the lake, after having, during the course of the summer (of 1855), destroyed the rising crops, and even the prairie grass. A famine ensued; but the Mormons, continues Mr. Remy, only saw in this scourge a fresh proof of the truth of their religion, because it had happened, as among the Israelites, in the seventh year after their settlement in the country.[365]
According to Lieutenant Warren, whose graphic description is here borrowed, these devastating insects of our great western plains are “nearly the same as the Locusts of Egypt; and no one,” continues this officer, “who has not traveled on the prairie, and seen for himself, can appreciate the magnitude of the swarms. Often they fill the air for many miles in extent, so that an inexperienced eye can scarcely distinguish their appearance from that of a shower of rain or the smoke of a prairie fire. The height of their flight may be somewhat appreciated, as Mr. Evans saw them above his head, as far as their size would render them visible, while standing on the top of a peak of the Rocky Mountains 8500 feet above the plain, and an elevation of 14,500 above that of the sea, in the region where the snow lies all the year. To a person standing in one of the swarms as they pass over and around him, the air becomes sensibly darkened, and the sound produced by their wings resembles that of the passage of a train of cars on a railroad, when standing two or three hundred yards from the track. The Mormon settlements have suffered more from the ravages of these insects than probably all other causes combined. They destroyed nearly all the vegetables cultivated last year at Fort Randall, and extended their ravages east as far as Iowa.”[366]