Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/422

 He was disagreeably reminded of the circumstance by Joe saying:

"Well, the rain is heavy enough, but this time there is going to be a deluge, if we may judge by the cloud now approaching us."

"Another cloud!" said Ferguson.

"A regular big fellow this time," replied Kennedy.

"I have never seen such a one," replied Joe; "it seems to have been laid out with rule and line."

"I can breathe again," replied the doctor, putting down the telescope. "It is not a cloud after all."

"What?" exclaimed Joe.

"No, it is a swarm

"Well?"

"A swarm of locusts."

"That a swarm of locusts?"

"Yes, of millions of locusts, which pass over the ground like a waterspout, and very unfortunately for the district, for if they alight it will be devastated."

"I should like to see that."

"Just wait a little, Joe; in ten minutes we shall have met the cloud, and then you can judge for yourself."

Ferguson was right; this thick cloud, extending for many miles, came upon them with a deafening noise, casting an immense shadow on the ground. It proved to be an innumerable host of those grasshoppers known as field-crickets. At a hundred paces from the "Victoria" they alighted upon a green expanse; a quarter of an hour later the mass again took flight, and the travelers could then perceive that the trees and bushes were completely stripped—the fields looked as if they had been mown. Not even a severe winter could do more damage.

"Well, Joe?"

"Well, sir, it is extraordinary, but quite natural. Though the locust is small, the numbers make him important."

"It is a terrible calamity—worse than hail in its effects," said Kennedy.

"And it is impossible to guard against them," said Ferguson. "The natives sometimes have conceived the idea of burning the forests, even the crops, in order to arrest the flight of these insects; but the leading files flew