Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet. [volume] (Baton Rouge, La.) 1865-18??, 1865-09-28
The Plague of EOcusts~~SingulaH
scenes i'm Jaffn.


4 letter dated at Jatfa Palestine), June
Goth, describes visitation of locusts us
follows:
"In the month of April last we observed
twice large dark clouds, resembling smoke,
moving to and fro as if swayed by the
wind. One morning these clouds came
down and proved to be locusts, so great in
number that the whole land was covered
with them. The grain at that time was
full in ear and nearly ripe, but the locusts
did not touch 1t or any other vegetation.
Soon after, however, IL was observed that
they buried themselves in the soil and
there deposited their innumerable eggs.
The Arabs and peasants saw the approach-
ing mischief, and went through the land in
thousands digging for these eggs; they
succeeded to certain degree, and de-
stroyed incredible numbers with water and
fire. but all their efforts had very little
effect.
About the middle of May small black
creatures, at a distance resembling large
ants, were observed mulating in large
heaps throughout the country, and few
days after they had been thus seen they
began to leap, and manifested the coming
calamity and invasion of the fearful army,
as described 80 emphatieally in Joel il.
The people now began to sweep them to-
gether and bury or burn them in bitches
dug for the purpose. But all to little or
no effect, and as they grew little larger
the extent Of their multitude began to be
seen, and the coming catastrophe could
not be mistaken. The roads were covered
with them, all marching in regular lines,
like armies of soldiers, with their leaders
in front, and all the opposition Of man to
arrest their progress was In vain.
They first consumed the plantations
around Ramleh, LYDIA and all tho smaller
villages near them, and then entering the
towns and villages consumed the victuals,
&c, in the market and streets, by degrees
forcing themselves into the houses and
covering the walls outside as well as in
side. It seems that everything which il
moistened by their saliva is poisoned, for
the cattle that feed on the remnants which
ARC left all die. | myself saw fifty oxen
dead in the village of Delta, Daggon and
Zaffarish that had fed on the remnant of
durrah (Indian corn) left by the locusts,
and the night before last twenty more died
from the same cause.
About two weeks ago they were seen TO
a fearful extent all round Jaffa, but still
without wings. The town for several
days appeared forsaken, all shops were
shut, all business suspended. Almost all
the inhabitants had gone out to destroy
and drive away the invading army; they
made tremendous bitches, and buried and
burned countless myriads, but, as before,
all in vain, for the more they destroyed
the more seemed to arise from hiding
places, and ~ they grew in size so they
seemed to grow in multitude, and toward
The east from here they covered the ground
for miles and miles to a height of several
inches. AS their wings are still too small
TO enable them to fly and to visit the sew
eral hundred gardens within the cultivated
part Of the district of Jatfa, they have
hitherto confined their distinctions to the
outer gardens, of which about fifty have
been completely laid waste, every green
leaf, vegetable, tree, and even the bark of
Young trees, devoured, and these beautiful
gardens look like birch tree forest In
winter.
Our garden was one of the first attacked.
For several days we saw the destructive
host advancing; all our farm servants, as
we'll rs several hired laborers, were en-
ployed to keep them off, to drive them
away, or bury them, but we found them as
Joel describes them, chapter H., verse Z,
They shall not break their ranks Who
can doubt the Word Of God when we have
these evidences before our eyes True, our
men broke their ranks for mement, but
no sooner had they passed the men than
they closed again, and marched forward
through hedges and bitches, as if united
by some mysterious power, causing them
to open before man, and to close again as
soon as they had passed him. On the 14th
instant they forced their way into the gar
den, deiying all human efforts to prevent
them, and in less than day the whole
garden, the extent of eight acres, was COW
cred with them, and the trees, to the num-
Der Of three thousand, as well as every
other green leaf, with the exception of the
palm trees and the priekly pear hedges,
we're stripped.
Whether eating or drinking, reading OF
writing, or lying awake in bed for it il
impossible to sleepy one hears their noise
from without, like the noise of armed hosts
or of the running Of many waters, and
within they keep dropping on and about
you. At meals / am kept busy driving
them away; while | drive half q dozen
away from the broad IS many will jump
into the sugar basin, or even into my cup
OF tea, &c, and when undressing they leap
out of our very clothes without our having
known that they were there.
News has Just reached us from Nablous
the olive trees in those mountains have all
been stripped, and near the river 0udge
the soil 10 30 thickly covered with these