CHAPTER VII
FIGHTING THE LOCUSTS
While I was traveling in the south, another menace to our people's
welfare had appeared: the locusts. From the Soudan they came in
tremendous hosts--black clouds of them that obscured the sun. It seemed
as if Nature had joined in the conspiracy against us. These locusts were
of the species known as the pilgrim, or wandering, locust; for forty
years they had not come to Palestine, but now their visitation was like
that of which the prophet Joel speaks in the Old Testament. They came
full-grown, ripe for breeding; the ground was covered with the females
digging in the soil and depositing their egg-packets, and we knew that
when they hatched we should be overwhelmed, for there was not a foot of
ground in which these eggs were not to be found.
The menace was so great that even the military authorities were obliged
to take notice of it. They realized that if it were allowed to fulfill
itself, there would be famine in the land, and the army would suffer
with the rest. Djemal Pasha summoned my brother (the President of the
Agricultural Experiment Station at Athlit) and intrusted him with the
organization of a campaign against the insects. It was a hard enough
task. The Arabs are lazy, and fatalistic besides; they cannot understand
why men should attempt to fight the _Djesh Allah_ ("God's Army"), as
they call the locusts.
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