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Chap. XXXI: Jackson

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 Mogadar 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 Arisch. The whole region from the confines of 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, though all the country north of Arisch 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," Gen. xvi. 12. 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. Jackson's Travels in Morocco, 54.

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. Bochart. A poet of our own 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 Plung'd from a mountain summit, or the roar 0. ild ocean in the autumn storm, Suartering its billows on a shore of rocks!

Southey's Thalaba, i. 169.