Mr. Barrow informs us that in South Africa, in 1784 and 1797, two thousand square miles were literally covered by Locusts, which, being carried into the sea by a northwest wind, formed, for fifty miles along shore, a bank three or four feet high; and when the wind was in the opposite point, the horrible odor which they exhaled was perceptible a hundred and fifty miles off.
The immense column of Locusts which ravaged all the Mahratta territory, and was thought to have come from Arabia, extended, Mr. Kirby's friend told him, five hundred miles, and was so dense as thoroughly to hide the sun, and prevent any object from casting a shadow. This horde was not composed of the migratory Locust, but of a red species, which imparted a sanguine color to the trees on which they settled.
Mr. Forbes describes a flight of Locusts which he saw soon after his arrival at Baroche in 1779. It was more than a mile in length, and half as much in breadth, and appeared, as the sun was in the meridian, like a black cloud at a distance. As it approached, its density obscured the solar rays, causing a gloom like that of an eclipse, over the gardens, and causing a noise like the rushing of a torrent. They were almost an hour in passing a given point.
In another place, this traveler states that, in one considerable tract near the confines of the Brodera district, he witnessed a mournful scene, occasioned by a scourge of Locusts. They had, some time before he came, alighted in that part of the country, and left behind them, he says, "an awful contrast to the general beauty of that earthly paradise." The sad description of Hosea, he adds, was literally realized: "That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten. They have laid waste the vine, and barked the fig-tree; they have made it clean bare, and the branches thereof are made white: the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered. Howl, ye husbandmen! for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate!"
On the 16th of May, 1800, Buchanan met with in Mysore a flight of Locusts which extended in length about three miles. He compares the noise they made to the sound of a cataract. This swarm was very destructive to the young crops of jola.
In 1811, at Smyrna, at right angles to a flight of Locusts, a man rode forty miles before he got rid of the moving column. This immense flight continued for three days and nights, apparently without intermission. It was computed that the lowest number of Locusts in this swarm must have exceeded 168,608,563,200,200! Captain Beaufort determined that the Locusts of this flight, which he himself saw, if framed into a heap, would have exceeded in magnitude more than a thousand and thirty times the largest pyramid of Egypt; or if put on the ground close together, in a band of a mile and an eighth in width, would have encircled the globe! This immense swarm caused such a famine in the district of Marwar, that the natives fled for subsistence in a living torrent into Guzerat and Bombay; and out of every hundred of these Marwarees, Captain Carnac estimates, ninety-nine died that year! Near the town of Baroda, these poor people perished at the rate of five hundred a day; and at Ahmedabad, a large city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred thousand died from this awful visitation!
In 1816, Captain Riley met with a flight of Locusts in the north of Africa, which extended in length about eight miles, and in breadth three. He tells us, also, he was informed that several years before he came to Mogadore, nearly all the Locusts in the empire, which at that time were very numerous, and had laid waste the country, were carried off in one night, and drowned in the Atlantic Ocean: that their dead carcasses a few days afterward were driven by winds and currents on shore, all along the western coast, extending from near Cape Spartel to beyond Mogadore, forming in many places immense piles on the beach: that the stench arising from their remains was intolerable, and was supposed to have produced the plague which broke out about that time in various parts of the Moorish dominions. Before this plague in 1799, Mr. Jackson tells us, from Mogadore to Tangier the face of the earth was covered by them, and relates the following singular incident which occurred at El Araiche: The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was ravaged by the Locusts; 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 carcasses, and a pestilence (confirming the statement, and verifying the supposition of Captain Riley) was caused by the horrid stench which they emitted: but when this evil ceased, their devastations were followed by a most abundant crop.
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 Ekaterinoslav 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.
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.
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."
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.
Nieuhof 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 Tayowan.
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.
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. 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.
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 (Oedipoda 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.
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."
The Mormons, in their simple and picturesque descriptions, say that these insects ("Crickets," Oedipoda corallipes) are the produce of "a cross between the Spider and the Buffalo."
In Egypt, in 1843, the popular idea was that the hordes of Locusts, which were then ravaging the land, were sent by the comet observed about that time for twelve days in the southwest.
Pliny, in the words of his translator, Holland, says: "Many a time have the Locusts been known to take their flight out of Affricke, and with whole armies to infest Italy: many a time have the people of Rome, fearing a great famine and scarcity toward, been forced to have recourse unto Sibyl's books for remedy, and to avert the ire of the gods. In the Cyrenaic region within Barbary, ordained it is by law, every three years to wage war against them, and so to conquer them. Yea, and a grievous punishment lieth upon him that is negligent in this behalf, as if he were a traitor to his prince and country. Moreover, within the Island Lemnos there is a certain proportion and measure set down, how many and what quantity every man shall kill: and they are to exhibit unto the magistrate a just and true account thereof, and namely, to show what measure full of dead Locusts. And for this purpose they make much of Jays, Dawes, and Choughs, whom they do honor highly, because they do fly opposite against the Locusts, and so destroy them. Moreover in Syria, they are forced to levy a warlike power of men against them, and to make riddance by that means."