ENGLISH CRICKETERS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Lake County Press, Issue 2134, 6 September 1906, Page 7

ENGLISH CRICKETERS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

In a letter to the "Westminister Gazette," Mr. "Plum" Warner, captain of the English cricket team recently in South Africa, describes an encounter which they had with locusts. Ten miles north of the Moddor (writes Mr. Warner) the train was. practicality brought to a standstill by a swarm of young locusts. They simply rained upon the line, and' for miles ahead the track was red as iron rust with them, while on both sides of the railway they simmered in the heal. The rails were made so slippery by their crushed bodies that the train merely crawled, and most of the passengers jumped out, some of them, especially Moon and Crawford, did good work shovelling sand on the line U> give the wheels a, better grip- This went on. for four or five miles, when the locusts gradually disappeared, but they were swarming in Kiinberley, where we arrived half an hour late, after .'!(.) hours in the train.

At Kimberley, adds Mr. Warner, though the locusts kept away in anything like large numbers from the cricket-ground, they were hopping al.iout the matting wicket on the prac-tice-ground, and in a single day they ate every blade of grass in the garden at the Sanatorium.