Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1894-03-08

| to tae King. GAS the Lord liveth,
In this place where dogs licked the
blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy
blood-eyen thine"-when suddenly,
right into the marmalade there
dropped what | took for a large
grasshopper. 1t was yellow and
green with long jumping legs and
a big head, and while / was taking
it out of the jar two others fell into
a plate Of soup, and half dozen
more of the same kind upon a dish
Of salad. .
At the same moment my horse
stamped violently, aud l saw more
of these grasshoppers pelting his
hooks and launches. Turning
round to find whence this insect
shower came, | witnessed what was
to me an extraordinary spectacle,
though common enough, of course,
rsn the East. A large cloud, denser
in its lower than its upper part, filled
an eighth part Of the western hemi-
cycle. The remoter portion of il
was as thick, as brown and brum-
Gus as q London fog.
/ The nearer side opened suddenly
up into millions and billions, and
trlllions aud sextillions of the same
green and yellow insects pelting in
a close-winged crowd quite as thick
ly as flakes of snow upon all the
hillsides far and near. You could
not stand a moment against the
aggressive and offensive rain of
these buzzing creatures. The
horses even swung themselves round
and stood with lowered crests, TAX
ing the storm upon their backs and
TANKS.
You had to turn up the collar of
your coat to keep them out of your
neck, and button the front not to
have your pockets filed with the
replusive swarm, which in two min
utes had SO peppered the whole
scene round about that its color and
character were entirely altered.
Every little creature of the inter
mina6le flight on alighting veered
himself ronnd head to wind on the
earth, just as if he had dropped
anchor and swung to the breeze !;
and it was curious to notice that
the general tint of the ground of
their countless bodies was brown if
you looked to windward, and green
if you gazed 10 leeward.
But very quickly the only green
to be seen round about was the hue
afforded by this sudden invasion.
Even while we prepared to yield up
the spot to them and pack our
lunch baskets for departure they
had cleared off grass and leaves and
every verdant thing around and
when they arose again from the soil,
or from any clump of trees, in a
hungry throng, the place they quit
ted had already assumed Il barren
and wintry aspect. The Syrian
peasants passing along the roads
were beating their breasts aud ours
ing the i'll fortune of the plague.
Some of them, none the less, gather
ed up clothful of the noxious
things; for the locust is distinctly
edible.
Half in wrath and revenge, and
half for novelty IN diet, the Arabs
to this day eat few of them, roast
ing them in wire nets or in earthern
vessels over a slow fire till the
wings and legs drop off and the
locust becomes crisp, in which state
it tastes, as l am able to say from
personal experiment, something
like an unsalted prawn. But it
seemed as if, had all Syria and the
globe itself taken to living on To-
Gusts, they would have hardly
made a sensible mark upon the ex-
traordinary number that drifted
that day over our heads. --London
Daily Telegraph.