ming as welcome as a _take_ of
shrimps to a Leigh fisherman, or harvest to the husbandman.

The dogs, too, barked and howled with joy, and frisked about as if they
were going out upon a hunt. On perceiving the cloud, their instinct
enabled them easily to recognise the locusts. They regarded them with
feelings similar to those that stirred Swartboy--for both dogs and
Bushmen eat the insects with avidity!

At the announcement that it was only locusts, all at once recovered from
their alarm. Little Truey and Jan laughed, clapped their hands, and
waited with curiosity until they should come nearer. All had heard
enough of locusts to know that they were only grasshoppers that neither
bit nor stung any one, and therefore no one was afraid of them.

Even Von Bloom himself was at first very little concerned about them.
After his feelings of apprehension, the announcement that it was a
flight of locusts was a relief, and for a while he did not dwell upon
the nature of such a phenomenon, but only regarded it with feelings of
curiosity.

Of a sudden his thoughts took a new direction. His eye rested upon his
fields of maize and buckwheat, upon his garden of melons, and fruits,
and vegetables: a new alarm seized upon him; the memory of many stories
which he had heard in relation to these destructive creatures rushed
into his mind, and as the whole truth developed itself, he turned pale,
and uttered new exclamations of alarm.

The children changed countenance as well. They saw that their father
suffered; though they knew not why. They gathered inquiringly around
him.

"Alas! alas! Lost! lost!" exclaimed he; "yes, all our crop--our labour
of the year--gone, gone! O my dear children!"

"How lost, father?--how gone?" exclaimed several of them in a breath.

"See the springhaan! they will eat up our crop--all--all!"

"'Tis true, indeed," said Hans, who being a great student had often read
accounts of the devastations committed by the locusts.

The joyous countenances of all once more wore a sad expression, and it
was no longer with curiosity that they gazed upon the distant cloud,
that so suddenly had clouded their joy.

Von Bloom had good cause for dread. Should the swarm come on, and
settle upon his fields, farewell to his prospects of a harvest. They
would strip the verdure from his whole farm in a twinkling. They would
leave neither seed, nor leaf, nor stalk, behind them.

All stood watching the flight with p