THE LOCUST. 271

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 description by almost any modern writer of the ap-
pearance and the destructive ravages of a swarm of locusta, ©
would exactly illustrate, in most of the details, this fine me-
taphorical account of their approach; and a very slight
consideration will show that an army of locusts was, in fact,
even more to be dreaded than any other enemies. Volney,
in his ‘Travels in Egypt and Syria,’ says, “Syria, as well
as Egypt, Persia, and almost all the south of Asia, is sub-
ject to another calamity no less dreadful than earthquakes,
I mean those clouds of locusts so often mentioned by tra-
' vellers. The quantity of these insects is incredible to all
who have not themselves witnessed their astonishing num-
bers: the whole earth is covered with them for the space of
several leagues. The noise they make in browzing on the
trees and herbage may be heard to a great distance, and
resembles that of an army foraging in secret. The Tartars
themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little
animals; one would imagine that fire had followed their
progress. Wherever their myriads spread, the verdure of
the country disappears as if a covering had been removed ;