Americus times-recorder., 1919-05-18

AZ bhC CI1O III PCDIudIy II WSo 2
ported from the wilderness that there
were swarms of locusts darkening the
sun. One day in March the light of the
sun was blotted out for time. Black
clouds of locusts had reached the holy
city; behind them came the storks by
the ten thousand and lived gloriously.
The stork is the worst enemy of the To-
Gust and therefore the Arabs call him
Abu Saad the father of fortune.
The locusts came from northeast
and flew southwest in clouds. The To-
Gusts belong to Asia as well as to
Africa and the Americas. For some
days they flew over Jerusalem looking
for green and fruitful places. AS a
strong southerly wind was blowing,
they came down and waited. They then
continued their journey in the same
direction Where they had passed it
was as though fire had consumed the
land. The trees were as bald as in Win
ter. But the damage these insects did
was trivial compared with what their
progeny effected.
In many districts the government
ordered the people to resist the plague.
In Bethlehem and the neighboring viii
lagos every man was ordered to kill
a fixed weight of loeusts. By the ton
they were dumped into old cisterns
and bitches and covered with earth.
They halted on the shore of the Med
iterranean, but tens of millions flew
too far, came down on the sea and
were thrown up by the tide to dry in
the sun and to be used as fuel by the
Turkish baths.
Wave of Black Larvae.
The locusts laid their eggs and de-
parted. April 10 the Turkish officials
ordered every man between 16 and go
years to bring in five Kilograms of
locust eggs; but every square meter of
ground contained seventy-five thous-
and eggs. While the people were busy
destroying the eggs came the news
+ that in Sharon and on the hills and
mountains in the the west the black
larvae were moving. They were not
larger than ants but they grew with
tremendous speed, cast their skins and
started to move. They traversed at
most two hundred yards a day, and as
they moved destroyed every green
thing This time the train moved north
east.
One day they flooded the German col
oIa11 tot, ,s,at
southeast of the town. The roads be-
came black. Horses, wagons and pedes-
trians slew countess numbers. The
trains were stopped on the rails. The
whole earth seemed to be in motion
and moved as in waves, so that it
gave you something like seasickness
to look at it. In billions they came
from the Plain of Sharon to the hills
of .Judea and Jerusalem and flowed in
great armies from the high road to
the Jaffa gate. The heavy traffic of
pedestrians, horSemen, caravans. and
wagons did not frighten the insects
Their instinct must have told them
that they could not still their hunger
in the streets of the town and they
went around the town to the other side,
and proceeded again northeast.
Fighting ''the Army OF Allah"
Jerusalem now lay like an island in
a shivering sea of locusts. On the
28th day of May, when the larvae had
reached the pupa stage they came to
the Garden of Gethsemane, whose
green they devoured in less than day
They left no trace of vegetation. Gar
dens, meadows, and vineyards were
eaten bare The vines lay upon the
ground like dead snakes. On every fig
leaf there swarmed a dozen locusts
Before the sun went down the tree
was plundered down to the small
twigs First they deyoured the fig trees
and the vines, then the tomatoes, the
oranges and the vegetables, the fields
of durra and the great stretches OF
melons The swarms of locusts climb
ed up the walls and over the roofs
I into the yards of the houses so that
2 the inhabitants had to flee. Everything
edible had to be kept under lock and
key, and in the houses in the American
colony one could not move about with
out finding locusts on ones person or
garments. With cloths and flags and
cries the colonists drove the locusts
into the bitches. They gathered them
in sacks which were always being
emptied and refilled An old peasant
who stood by said it was vain to fight
against 1.-The army of Allah
Eat Even One Another.
The appetite of these insects is in
satiable. When there is nothing else
they will eat one another. They devoul
ants and other insects. They storm the