In the province of Constantine the locust appeared almost simultaneously, from the Sahara to the sea, and from Bougia to La Calle. At Batna, at Setif, at Constantine, at Guelma, at Bona, at Philippeville, at Djidjelly, the inhabitants struggled with energy against this invasion, but neither fire nor any obstacles opposed to the advance of this winged army were able to stop their ravages. The French Government, to alleviate as much as possible the ruin which was thus brought upon the colony, opened a public subscription at the end of the year 1866. The negroes of Soudan endeavour to frighten the locusts in their flight by savage yells. In Hungary they employed for the same object the noise of cannon. In the middle ages, for the want of cannon, they exorcised the locusts. A traveller of the sixteenth century, the monk Alvarez, relates that he also employed exorcisms against an immense host of these destructive insects which he met with in Ethiopia. When he perceived them, he made the Portuguese and the natives form in procession, and ordered them to chant psalms. "Thus chanting," says he, "we went into a country where the corn was, which having reached, I made them catch a good many of these locusts, to whom I delivered an adjuration, which I carried with me in writing, by me composed the preceding night, summoning, admonishing, and excommunicating them. Then I charged them in three hours' time to depart to the sea, or else to go to the land of the Moors, leaving the land of the Christians; on their refusal of which, I adjured and convoked all the birds of the air, animals, and tempests, to dissipate, destroy, and devour them; and for this admonition I had a certain quantity of these locusts seized, and pronouncing these words in their presence, that they might not be ignorant of them, I let them go, so that they might tell the rest." If one reflects that on their arrival in the land of the Moors, these same locusts were perhaps received by prayers which had for their object to send them back to the land of the Christians, they must have been very much embarrassed by such contradictory adjurations.