species have immensely long feelers projecting
out near the eyes. I noticed some of these
feelers twice the length of the rest of the
body. The bite of the largest kind is strong
enough to bend a pin. This locust has
immense sharp tusks, furnished with saws
inside. His mouth opens on all four sides, and
closes like a vice. His eyes are horny, and he
cannot shut them. The largest kind have
too short yellow wings and a long pointed
fleshy tail, the smallest have four long black
wings and no tail. The head is always large
in comparison to the body, and not unlike
that of a lobster. In moving, its scales make
a noise like the creaking of new leather.

The locusts are on the wing, they have
risen from the ground into the air. They
darken the sky in their steady flight for
hours, and they make a noise like the rushing
of a mighty wind. Far as the eye can see
over land and water broods the same ominous
cloud. The imagination refuses to grasp
their number. It must be counted by
millions of millions. Count the flakes of a
snow-storm, the sands by the seashore, the
leaves of summer trees, and the blades of
grass on dewy meadows. For days and days
the locust storm and the hot south wind
continue. At night the locusts descend on the
gardens and cornfields. They struggle
for pre-eminence on the points of palings,
and the topmost overlooks the rest with
extraordinary gravity. They crawl and
hop loathsomely on fruit and flower.
They get into eggs and fish, which become
uneatable in consequence. There is no
help against them because of their multitude.
They eat holes in my bedding; they get into
my pockets, and into my hair and beard.
The Greek women are obliged to tie their
trowsers on above their gowns as a protection
against them. You tread upon them; they
blow against you, they fly against you,
they dine off the same plate, and hop
on a piece of food you are putting into
your mouth. Their stench is horrible, and
this lasts for weeks.

I was tempted to impale one of them as a
specimen, and left it sticking on a pin in the
wall. Hamed slyly removed it, believing the
proceeding to be a charm or magical device
to counteract the designs of Heaven.

"It is God's will!" he said, sententiously,
when I found him out and reproached him.

So they ate up the corn lands and the
vineyards, wheresoever they fell. I counted
nine on one blade of wheat. When they left
it, it was as bare as a quill.

"They have still left your apples
untouched," I said to a gardener.

"Helas! " replied the man. "They
have eaten up all beside; and what
is the use of your eyebrows if you have
lost your eyes!"

Three days after they had eaten his apples
too.

I noticed, however, that in the years
the locusts appear there is no blight or
smaller insects about. Perhaps, therefore,
they are mercifully sent to destroy the
smaller and more dangerous insects when
they have multiplied exceedingly under the
prolific suns of the East.

But, they are a dreadful visitation. They
ate holes in my clothes as I walked about.
They got among Hamed's arms. They
choked up the barrels of his pistols, and fed
upon his sash of silk and gold. They ate
away the tassel of his cap and the leathern
sheath of his sword. My French debardeur
dressing-gown, one month from Alfred's,
might have been taken for a recent purchase
at Rag Fair. They ate the sole of my slipper
while I was asleep on a sofa. They ate my
shirts in the wardrobe, and they eat my
stockings. Hamed's "good man" never
arriving, he catches many and puts them out
of the window with much tenderness. The
pasha, my host, with a touching faith in the
goodness of God, goes about with a long
stick to save them from drowning when they
are driven by the winds into his reservoir of
gold fish.

Perhaps the pasha is right: but I
cannot be so good as he is. For, the
locusts eat the back hair off women's heads
while washing at the fountain, and the
mustachios off gardeners while they sleep in
the noonday shadow. They strip trees till
they look as if struck by lightning or burnt
by fire. I see the plants green and gay in the
moonlight. In the morning their freshness
and beauty have departed.

Families sit wailing in their fields over the
ruin of their little all. There is a story that
the locusts have eaten a child while its
mother was away at work. There is a tradition
that they once ate a drunken man who
fell down in the kennel. Neither event is
improbable. I saw a locust draw blood from
the lips of an infant in its mother's arms.

They will not die. They seem to have
neither sight nor hearing—vile things with
nothing but mouths. If you catch one he
will spring from your hold, and leaving his
legs behind him go on as well as ever. The
Cadi had a little garden; he had it watched
day and night, for it was his pride, and full
of far-away flowers. He kept tires surrounding
it night and day to prevent the locusts
crawling in. When they had learned to fly
he fired guns to turn aside their course.
When they came in spite of this he turned a
garden engine upon them. Then he buried
them, but every green thing and every blossom
was stripped from his garden for all that.

They will not die. They can swim for
hours. Hot water, cold water, acids, spirits,
smoke, are useless. I plunged one in salt
and water. He remained four minutes, and
sprung away apparently uninjured. I
recaught him and smoked him for five
minutes. Two minutes afterwards he had
revived, and was hopping away. I recaught