The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-03
A SOUTH AFRICAN PLAGUE.
Myriads of Locusts That Stopped Busi-
 ness and Ruined Farms.

N-~N AAASs
 Shortly after midday on Friday the dark cloud which had been seen away beyond the mines on the south of Johannesburg drew nearer, covering the entire skyline, writes a Johannes burg correspondent of the London Daily Mail "The usual storm, was the general comment, for the Rand this summer has had more than an ordinary supply of afternoon thunder storms. And storm it was. But it was a storm of locusts-and one which even the oldest Rand pioneer searched his memory in vain to parallel.
 Hardly had the detached spies of the advance guard fallen in the streets than the town experienced the dim re- liglous light of London fog. The term Hardened the sky" was literally true. The sun was hidden by an enormous, almost solid, mass of flying brown To- custs-the most destructive kind. They passed in millions-billions- -myriads. Upward, as far as the eye could see, To- custs shut out the blue sky. Eastward to Gernliston, westward toward Kru- gersdorp, the swarm seemed number | less, limitless The whole world ap- | peared to be filled with locusts.
 They descended like flakes of snow. Millions crawled and jumped in the streets, millions ravaged the gardens in the suburbs. But those which fell l formed an inf1nitesimal section of the main body passing overhead They were as q handful of sand taken from | the seashore.
 In Commissioner street they formed carpet inches thick, mangled by vehicles, cut up by cycles and motor cars. Women fought them vigorously parasol in one hand, the other clutch ing frantically at their skirts. Mer beat down the invaders with books an6 papers and sticks. The most active dogs soon gave up the struggle in de spair and slunk away to quiet corners The telephone servise was interrupted by the weight of the insects clingine to the wires. The houses had a living roof of crawling locusts.
 On the Reef trains were brought tt standstill. The locusts crushed or the rails made them so slippery tht wheels would not grip, and all the sant available was useless. Down Hospita lhill three tramway cars ran away fol the same reason. So thick was tht swarm on the Berea that the chauffeu, of A large motor car drove into a pos and was overturned and had to be re moved to hospital.
 In the suburbs gardens were eater bare and the unfortunate owners fought in vain with sticks and tenni racquets against the millions of in vaders. The great tailing dumps, tn "Alps of the Rand were no longe white with snow They were all browl brown with covering of locusts. Il town they penetrated everywhere. Tei Ircoms and bars, houses and offices, al Icontained locusts. It was useless t close the doors and windows The. crawled in by pipes and chimneys Icrept through crevices or ventilator or arrived in the clothing of visitors Johannesburg was fiooded-with 10 locusts.
 The main army crossed the town | four or five hours, and disappeared I the north, but millions which fell b, the way are still with US. As l writ had twice had to get up and destro, stragglers, rustling about under news
 papers, or attempting to jump into tn
 inkpot On the roof outside there ar thousands upon thousands; ten stal | ortc nY. 1rpnn1Kfupr their heads VainI
 at the window, and in the street beloN
 the crushed bodies are as the sand O
 the shore. and the Kafffrs are tired 0
 eating them. At night the smell of de
 composing locusts pervades the town.
 But the inconvenience and damage
 the town are nothing contrasted wit
 the ruin brought upon the farmers
 South Africa is indeed land c plaques. Disease kills the stock, le
 custs eat the crops. Last year its wa
 to the extent of 100000 pounds an } many individual farmers estimate
 their loss at 500 pounds. In the CroC
 odile river valley near Pretoria, tn
 damage was set down at 1000 pound s This year the locust plague appears , all over south Africa tell the same story.
 It is curious how small are the dat , available regarding locusts in Sout
 Africa. These lnVaSlonS seem 10 com } in cycles, but why they come an . whence, and the conditions under whie ; they breed are largely matters of COT ' troversy.
 l Moffat, the missionary, recorded
 tremendous invasion about Kuruman
 1926, which he said had been unpara , leled for twenty years, and had nt ? been equaled since Che wrote in 1S40 l In Natal there was no locust troub
 between 1851 and 1893, but in the la , ter year the scourge was awful Or swarm took ten days to cross the far s of Hon. Joseph Baynes, and anothe , took twenty-one days flying over