An impostor, who is believed to have been a French adventurer, at one time, it is said, endeavored to persuade the
people of Morocco that he could destroy all the Locusts by a chemical process.[375]
The superstitious Tartars of the Crimea, in order to rid their country of its most destructive enemy, the Locusts, at one time sent over to Asia Minor, whence these insects had come, to procure Dervises to drive them away by their incantations, etc. These divines prayed around the mosques, and, as a charm, ordered water to be hung out on the minarets, which, with the prayers, were meant to entice a species of blackbird to come in multitudes and devour the Locusts! The water thus hung out is said to be still preserved in the mosques. On this occasion, the Dervises collected eighty thousand rubles, the poorest shepherd giving half a ruble.[376]
We read in “Purchas’s Pilgrims,” of Locusts being exorcised and excommunicated, so that they immediately flew away![377] From this interesting collection the following is clipped: “In the yeere 1603, at Fremona, great misery happened by Grasse-hoppers, from which Paez freed the Catholikes, by Letanies and sprinkling the Fields with Holy-water; when as the Fields of Heretikes, seuered only by a Ditch, were spoyled by them. Yea, a Heretike vsing this sacred sprinkling, preserued his corne, which, to a Catholike neglecting in one Field, was lost, and preserued in another by that couiured aspersion (so neere of kinne are these Locusts to the Deuill, which is said to hate Holy-water).”[378]
In the south of Europe rewards are offered for the collection both of the Locusts and their eggs; and at Marseilles, it is on record that, in the year 1613, 20,000 francs were paid for this purpose. In 1825, the same city paid a sum of 6200 francs for destroying these pests to agriculture.[379] We read in the eighty-first volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine, that most of the Agricultural Societies of Italy have offered premiums for the best method of destroying Locusts: that in many districts several thousand persons are employed in searching for the eggs; that in four days the inhabitants of the district of Ofanto collected at one time 80,000 sacks full, which were thrown into the river.[380]
The noise Locusts make when engaged in the work of destruction has been compared to the sound of a flame of fire driven by the wind, and the effect of their bite to that of fire.[381] Volney says: “The noise they make, in browsing on the trees and herbage, may be heard at a great distance, and resembles that of an army foraging in secret.” His following sentence may also be introduced here: “The Tartars themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little animals.”[382] Robbins compares their noise to that of small pigs when eating corn.[383] The noise produced by their flight and approach, the poet Southey has strikingly described:
Onward they came a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of a broad river headlong in its course