To this species of devastation Africa in general seems always to have been peculiarly subject. This may be gathered from the law in Cyrenaica mentioned by Pliny, by which the inhabitants were enjoined to destroy the locusts in three different states, three times in the year—first their eggs, then their young, and lastly the perfect insect[380]. And not without reason was such a law enacted; for Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3800, Africa was infested by such infinite myriads of these animals, that having devoured every green thing, after flying off to sea they were drowned, and being cast upon the shore they emitted a stench greater than could have been produced by the carcases of 100,000 men[381]. St. Augustine also mentions a plague to have arisen in that country from the same cause, which destroyed no less than 800,000 persons (octingenta hominum millia) in the kingdom of Masanissa alone, and many more in the territories bordering upon the sea[382].
From Africa this plague was occasionally imported into Italy and Spain; and a historian quoted in Mouffet relates that in the year 591 an infinite army of locusts of a size unusually large, grievously ravaged part of Italy; and being at last cast into the sea, from their stench arose a pestilence which carried off near a million of men and beasts. In the Venetian territory, also, in 1478 more than 30,000 persons are said to have perished in a famine occasioned by these terrific scourges. Many other instances of their devastations in Europe, in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, &c.[383], are recorded by the same author. In 1650 a cloud of them was seen to enter Russia in three different places, which from thence passed over into Poland and Lithuania, where the air was darkened by their numbers. In some places they were seen lying dead heaped one upon another to the depth of four feet; in others they covered the surface like a black cloth, the trees bent with their weight, and the damage they did exceeded all computation[384]. At a later period in Languedoc when the sun became hot they took wing and fell upon the corn, devouring both leaf and ear, and that with such expedition that in three hours they would consume a whole field. After having eaten up the corn they attacked the vines, the pulse, the willows, and lastly the hemp notwithstanding its bitterness[385]. Sir H. Davy informs us[386] that the French government in 1813 issued a decree with a view to occasion the destruction of grasshoppers.
Even this happy island, so remarkably distinguished by its exemption from most of those scourges to which other nations are exposed, was once alarmed by the appearance of locusts. In 1748 they were observed here in considerable numbers, but providentially they soon perished without propagating. These were evidently stragglers from the vast swarms which in the preceding year did such infinite damage in Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland. One of these swarms, which entered Transylvania in August, was several hundred fathoms in width, (at Vienna the breadth of one of them was three miles,) and extended to so great a length as to be four hours in passing over the Red Tower; and such was its density that it totally intercepted the solar light, so that when they flew low one person could not see another at the distance of twenty paces[387]. A similar account has been given me by a friend of mine[388] long resident in India. He relates that when at Poonah he was witness to an immense army of locusts which ravaged the Mahratta country, and was supposed to come from Arabia (this, if correct, is a strong proof of their power to pass the sea under favourable circumstances). The column they composed, my friend was informed, extended five hundred miles; and so compact was it, when on the wing, that like an eclipse it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs distant from his residence not more than two hundred yards were rendered quite invisible. This was not the Locusta migratoria, but a red species; which circumstance much increased the horror of the scene; for, clustering upon the trees after they had stripped them of their foliage, they imparted to them a sanguine hue. The peach was the last tree that they touched.
Dr. Clarke, to give some idea of the infinite numbers of these animals, compares them to a flight of snow when the flakes are carried obliquely by the wind. They covered his carriage and horses, and the Tartars assert that people are sometimes suffocated by them. The whole face of nature might have been described as covered by a living veil. They consisted of two species, L. tatarica and migratoria; the first is almost twice the size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars the herald or messenger[389].—The account of another traveller, Mr. Barrow, of their ravages in the southern parts of Africa (in 1784 and 1797) is still more striking: an area of nearly two thousand square miles might be said literally to be covered by them. When driven into the sea by a N. W. wind, they formed upon the shore for fifty miles a bank three or four feet high, and when the wind was S. E. the stench was so powerful as to be smelt at the distance of 150 miles[390].
From 1778 to 1780 the empire of Marocco was terribly devastated by them, every green thing was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escaping—a most dreadful famine ensued.—The poor were seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable subsistence from the roots of plants; and women and children followed the camels, from whose dung they picked the indigested grains of barley, which they devoured with avidity: in consequence of this, vast numbers perished, and the roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcases of the dead. On this sad occasion, fathers sold their children, and husbands their wives[391]. When they visit a country, says Mr. Jackson, speaking of the same empire, it behoves every one to lay in provision for a famine, for they stay from three to seven years. When they have devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves and then the bark. From Mogador to Tangier, before the plague in 1799, the face of the earth was covered by them—at that time a singular incident occurred at El Araiche. The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was ravaged by them: but on the other side of the river El Kos not one of them was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying over it. Till then they had proceeded northward; but upon arriving at its banks they turned to the east, so that all the country north of El Araiche was full of pulse, fruits and grain,—exhibiting a most striking contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district. At length they were all carried by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean; the shore, as in former instances, was covered by their carcases, and a pestilence was caused by the horrid stench which they emitted:—but when this evil ceased, their devastations were followed by a most abundant crop. The Arabs of the Desert, "whose hands are against every man[392]," and who rejoice in the evil that befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds of locusts proceeding from the north are filled with gladness, anticipating a general mortality, which they call El-Khere (the benediction); for, when a country is thus laid waste, they emerge from their arid deserts and pitch their tents in the desolated plains[393].
The noise the 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[394]. A wild poet of our day has very strikingly described the noise produced by their flight and approach:
"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
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks[395]!"
But no account of the appearance and ravages of these terrific insects, for correctness and sublimity, comes near that of the prophet Joel, "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong: there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. Like the noise of chariots[396] on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their faces the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks; neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining!" The usual way in which they are destroyed is also noticed by the prophet. "I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things[397]!"
I think, after a serious consideration of all these well attested facts, when locusts contend with the two-legged destroyers of the human race for proud pre-eminence in mischief, you will find it difficult to determine to which the palm should be decreed; and you will admire the propriety with which, in the above and other passages of Holy Writ, they are selected as symbols of the great ravagers of the earth of our own species.