Proceedings of the Expedition to Explore the Northern Coast of Africa: From Tripoly Eastward; in MDCCCXXI. and MDCCCXXII., Comprehending an Account of the Greater Syrtis and Cyrenaica; and of the Ancient Cities Composing the Pentapolis

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Page 109 - A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
Page 108 - ... thieves. The inhabitants, to stop their progress, made a variety of pits and trenches all over their fields and gardens, which they filled with water; or else they heaped up therein heath, stubble, and such like combustible matter, which were severally set on fire upon the approach of the locusts. But this was all to no purpose ; for the trenches were quickly filled up, and the fires extinguished -by infinite swarms succeeding one another ; whilst the...
Page 108 - March, the wind having been some time from the south. In the middle of April, their numbers were so vastly increased, that in the heat of the day they formed themselves into large and numerous swarms, flew in the air like a succession of clouds, and, as the prophet Joel expresses it, they darkened the sun.
Page 108 - ... in doing which, they kept their ranks like men of war, climbing over, as they advanced, every tree or wall that was in their way; nay. they entered into our very houses ana bed-chambers like thieves. The inhabitants, to stop their progress, made a variety of pits and trenches all over their fields and gardens...
Page 109 - Spain, it is probable they perished in the sea: a grave which, according to these people, they have in common with other winged creatures. The locust, I conjecture, was the noisome beast, or the pernicious destructive animal, as the original words may be interpreted, which, with the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, made the four sore judgments that were threatened against Jerusalem. The Jews were allowed to eat them; and, indeed, when sprinkled with salt and dried, they are not unlike in taste...
Page 108 - In the month of May, when the ovaries of those insects were ripe and turgid, each of these swarms began gradually to disappear, and retired into the Metijiah and other adjacent plains, where they deposited their eggs, These were no sooner hatched in June...
Page 322 - ... but to the operation of certain secret propensities that are deeply lodged in the human breast. There arises involuntarily in the heart of man a longing after forms of being, fairer and happier than any presented by the world before him — bright scenes which he seeks and never finds, in the circuit of real existence. But imagination easily creates them in that dim boundary which separates the known from the unknown world. In the first discoverers of any such region...
Page 343 - Have a care what you do, brother,' returns his companion ; ' I should advise you to do no such thing, for I will venture to predict that this very year your tree will be covered with fruit.' ' No, no,' replies the owner, ' I am determined to cut it down, for I am certain it will produce me nothing'; and then, approaching the tree, he proceeds to give it two or three strokes with his hatchet.
Page 492 - We hardly know a sound which partakes less of harmony than that in question ; and, indeed, the sudden burst of the answering long-protracted scream succeeding immediately to the opening note, is scarcely less impressive than the roll of the thunder-clap immediately after a flash of lightning. The effect of this music is very much increased when the first note is heard in the distance, and the answering yell bursts out from several points at once, within a few yards or feet of the place where the...
Page 325 - Scarcely any two of the gardens we met with were, however, of the same depth or extent; and we have no reason to conclude that, because we saw none which were large enough to be fixed upon for the garden of the Hesperides, as it is described in the statement of Scylax, there is, therefore, no place of the dimensions required among those which escaped our notice; particularly as the singular formation we allude to continues to the foot of the Cyrenaic chain, which is fourteen miles distant, in the...

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