Saturday, September 16th.—Waking at half-past five, we busied ourselves until nine o'clock, when we again started in a special train for Carcaraña. After a short stop at Roldan, it was reached two hours later, and breakfast was followed by a long ride through the Land Company's colony, and from thence to Candelaria, a purely Spanish settlement.

I freely confess that I had hardly believed all the stories they told me last night about the terrible doings of the locusts, and thought they must have been slightly exaggerated. It all seemed too dreadful to be true—as if one of the plagues of Egypt had been revived by the wand of an evil magician. In this somewhat incredulous mood I rashly said that, although I was very sorry to hear of the visit of these destructive creatures, as they were unfortunately here, I should like to see them. My wish was shortly to be gratified; for, in the course of our ride, we saw in the distant sky what looked very much like a heavy purple thunder-cloud, but which the experienced pronounced to be a swarm of locusts. It seemed impossible; but as we proceeded they met us, first singly, and then in gradually increasing numbers, until each step became positively painful, owing to the smart blows we received from them on our heads, faces, and hands.