From Ghadames they proceeded _en masse_ to Tripoli and Ghabs, inflicting great damage. When they passed near the gardens of Ghabs, the people climbed up the fruit-trees and made a great noise, screaming and shouting, which kept them from settling in masses on the fruit-trees and vegetables. They also kindled a fire and tried to smoke them away. Many of those which did settle were gathered, cooked, and eaten with great _gusto_ by the people. I met them myself on the immense plains of Solyman; they were the first flight of locusts I ever saw. I had seen locusts on the hills near Mogador, where they are bred in great numbers. Millions of small green things were just starting into being. The locust is a somewhat disproportioned insect, the wings are too fine for the bulk and weight of the body, which explains why they are unable to struggle against the wind; as it is said in the Scriptures, "and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts." (Exod. x. 13.) They do not fly high, and when they settle on the ground they roll over very clumsily. A flight at a distance looks like falling flakes of snow in a snow-storm. They are mostly of a reddish colour, with lead-coloured bodies, and some of a glaring yellow. The yellow ones are said to be the males, and are not so good eating as the others. The locust tastes very much like a dry shrimp when roasted. They are from an inch and a half to two and a half long. The head is large and square, and very formidable. Hence the Scripture allusion: "and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men." (Rev. ix. 7.) But the prophecy gives them a superadded power which they do not possess, "and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power;" (v. 3.) for when you catch the locust it makes little resistance and does not bite. Few of these were eating, and most of them were either flying or lay motionless basking in the sun, grouped in hundreds round tufts of long coarse grass. My Moorish fellow-travellers didn't like their appearance. They said the locusts are bad things, and came from the hot country to devour their harvest. It was indeed, an unpleasant sight, this horde of insect marauders, and soon lost the charm of novelty. But the world is made up of the elements of destruction and reproduction. Such is the eternal order of Providence, and we must bear the evil and the good. I do not think that they come far south or from the inner Desert, for they could not be bred in regions of desolation, where there is no green thing. Yet these flights were from the south of Ghadames, and at any rate they are bred in the Saharan districts, from the banks of the Nile to the shores of the Atlantic. The world is full of impostors. One of these went once upon a time to Morocco, and endeavoured to persuade the people he could destroy all the locusts by some chemical process. I believe he was a French adventurer.