In 1825 the Russian empire was overrun to a very alarming extent by young Locusts. About Kiew, as far as the eye could reach, they lay piled up one upon another to the height of two feet. Through the government of Ekatharinoslaw and Cherson to the Black Sea, a distance of about 400 miles, they covered the ground so thickly that a horse could not walk fast through them. The sight of such an immense number, says an eye-witness, Mr. Jaeger, of the most destructive and rapacious insects, justly occasioned a melancholy foreboding of famine and pestilence, in case they should invade the cultivated and populous countries of Russia and Poland. It was at this juncture, however, that the Emperor Alexander sent his army of thirty thousand soldiers to destroy them. These forming a line of several hundred miles, and advancing toward the south, attacked them with shovels, and collected them, as far as possible, in sacks and burned them. This is the largest army of soldiers sent against Locusts we have any record of.[357]
In 1824, Locusts made their appearance at the Glen-Lynden Colony in South Africa, being the first time they had been seen there since 1808. In 1825, they continued to advance from the north; in 1826, the corn crops at Glen-Lynden were totally destroyed by them; and in 1827, 1828, and 1829, they extended their ravages through the whole of the northern and southern districts of the colony. In 1830, they again disappeared.[358]
The following graphic description of the swarm that visited Glen-Lynden in 1825 is from the pen of Mr. Pringle. He says: "In returning to Glen-Lynden, we passed through a flying swarm, which had exactly the appearance, as it approached, of a vast snow-cloud hanging on the slope of a mountain from which the snow was falling in very large flakes. When we got into the midst of them, the air all around and above was darkened as by a thick cloud; and the rushing sound of the wings of the millions of these insects was as loud as the dash of a mill-wheel.... The column that we thus passed through was, as nearly as I could calculate, about half a mile in breadth, and from two to three miles in length."[359]
In 1835, a plague of Locusts made their appearance in China, in the neighborhood of Quangse, and in the western departments of Quangtung. The military and people were ordered out to exterminate them, as they had done two years before. A more rational mode, however, was adopted by the authorities, of offering a bounty of twelve or fifteen cash per catty of the insects. They were gathered so fast for this price, that it was immediately lowered to five or six cash per catty. A strike followed, and the Locusts were left in quiet to do as much damage as they could.[360]