At this moment, and just as the cloud was becoming elongated again, Moncrieff came to our side. His usually bright face fell at once as soon as he glanced at it.
'Locusts!' He almost gasped the word out.
'Locusts!' was re-echoed from every corner of the carriage; and immediately all eyes were strained in the direction of our 'lofty golden cloud.'
As we approached nearer to it, and it came nearer to us, even the light from the setting sun was obscured, and in a short time we were in the cloud, and apparently part of it. It had become almost too dark to see anything inside our carriage, owing to that dense and awful fog of insect life. We quickly closed the windows, for the loathsome insects were now pattering against the glass, and many had already obtained admittance, much to the horror of young Mrs. Moncrieff, though aunt took matters easy enough, having seen such sights before.
The train now slowly came to a standstill. Something—no one appeared to know what—had happened on ahead of us, and here we must wait till the line was clear. Even Moncrieff's mother had awakened, and was looking out with the rest of us.
'Dearie me! Dearie me!' she exclaimed. 'A shower o' golochs! The very licht o' day darkened wi' the fu'some craiters. Ca' you this a land o' milk and honey? Egyptian darkness and showers o' golochs!'
We descended and walked some little distance into the country, and the sight presented to our astonished gaze I, for one, will not forget to my dying day. The locusts were still around us, but were bearing away southward, having already devastated the fields in this vicinity. But they fell in hundreds and thousands around us; they struck against our hands, our faces, and hats; they got into our sleeves, and even into our pockets; and we could not take a step without squashing them under foot. 108
Only an hour before we had been passing through a country whose green fertility was something to behold once and dream about for ever. Evidence of wealth and contentment had been visible on all sides. Beautiful, home-looking, comfortable estancias and out-buildings, fat, sleek cattle and horses, and flocks of beautiful sheep, with feathered fowls of every description. But here, though there were not wanting good farmsteadings, all was desolation and threatened famine; hardly a green blade or leaf was left, and the woebegone looks of some of the people we met wandering aimlessly about, dazed and almost distracted, were pitiful to behold. I was not sorry when a shriek from the engine warned us that it was time to retrace our slippery footsteps.
'Is this a common occurrence?' I could not help asking our friend Moncrieff.
He took me kindly by the arm as he replied,