ATTACKED BY LOCUSTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 270, 22 September 1879, Page 2

ATTACKED BY LOCUSTS.

A detachment of Russian troops, bound for General Lazareff's expedition against the Turcoman's, is reported by the Kavkas to have met with a curious misadventure near the Georgian town of Flizavetopol. At a few versts from the town the soldiers encountered the wing of an ariny of locusts reputed to be twenty miles long and broad in proportion. The officer in charge did not like to turn back, repelled by mere insects, and, pushing on, soon became surrounded by ihe locusts. These appear to have mistaken the soldiers for trees, and swarmed by thousands around them, " crawling over their bodies, lodging themselves inside their helmets, penetrating their clothes and their knapsacks, filling the barrels of their rides, and striving to force themselves into the unfortunate men's ears and noses." The commander gave the order for the troops to push on double quick for Flizavetopol, but the road was so blocked with locusts i that the soldiers grew frightened, and 'after wavering a few minutes n regular [stampede took place, Led by a nonj commissioned officer of keen vision, who observed a few huts a sliovt distance from I the road, the troops dashed across the fields, " slipping about over the crushed and greasy bodies of the locusts as though [they had been on ice." The huts were soon reached, and the ufficers rushed' inside, but the refuge proved to be of little value, as the premises were already in the possession of the /memy. The peasants told the correspondent of the Kavkas t'>at for days they had been besieged by the vermin, the bisects filling the wells and tainting the water, crowding into the ovens and spoiling the bread, and preventing any food being cooked or stored, At intervals the villagers issued from their houses and made onslaughts on the locusts, killing them by thousands, and carting them away afterwards to the fields for manure, The soldiers were detained } prisoners by the insects for forty-eight I hours, and 011 their inarch to Flizavetopol 1 in the rear of the locus 1 , army, they found every blade of grass and green leaf destroyed, and the peasants reduced to beggary.