DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4752#0286
276 turkey's debt to her predecessors
the flanks of a column of soldiers. Near Smyrna
I saw an army whose line of march happened for a
short distance to touch and coincide in direction
with a road : at that part the left half of the road
and the fields beside it were black with locusts,
while the right half had not a single locust on it.
No locust stops or swerves either to right or left,
but each marches by a series of jumps straight on,
till he finds something green to eat, which millions
devour in a few seconds ; while the rest pour on
over them, and the onward march is thus never
interrupted for a moment. If a wall or a house or
a city comes in their way, they go right over it, up
the one side and down the other.
When we were at Angora in 1881, the country
round, especially to the west and south, was
ravaged by them, and we rode across many armies
of them. In the city they swarmed in streets and
houses alike ; when you poured some water into
a tumbler to drink, out tumbled several locusts
from the porous terra-cotta jug in which for the
sake of coolness the water is kept; when you
turned down the bed-clothes you disclosed a lot
of locusts ; when you felt something moving in your
sleeve or your trouser-leg, it was a locust. They
choked up the fountains and impeded the streams.
The British consul was active in promoting measures
against the scourge. The population of the country
the flanks of a column of soldiers. Near Smyrna
I saw an army whose line of march happened for a
short distance to touch and coincide in direction
with a road : at that part the left half of the road
and the fields beside it were black with locusts,
while the right half had not a single locust on it.
No locust stops or swerves either to right or left,
but each marches by a series of jumps straight on,
till he finds something green to eat, which millions
devour in a few seconds ; while the rest pour on
over them, and the onward march is thus never
interrupted for a moment. If a wall or a house or
a city comes in their way, they go right over it, up
the one side and down the other.
When we were at Angora in 1881, the country
round, especially to the west and south, was
ravaged by them, and we rode across many armies
of them. In the city they swarmed in streets and
houses alike ; when you poured some water into
a tumbler to drink, out tumbled several locusts
from the porous terra-cotta jug in which for the
sake of coolness the water is kept; when you
turned down the bed-clothes you disclosed a lot
of locusts ; when you felt something moving in your
sleeve or your trouser-leg, it was a locust. They
choked up the fountains and impeded the streams.
The British consul was active in promoting measures
against the scourge. The population of the country