Mr. Baker to Mr. Bayard.
Caracas, March 30, 1885. (Received April 20.)
Sir: At about 1 p.m. on the 28th instant my attention was arrested by a phenomenon that may be worthy of brief mention. All of a sudden I heard a subdued roaring sound, somewhat like that of a storm or of the sea at a distance, and looking towards the patio of my house I observed the ground and vegetation darkened thickly with flitting shadows, and looking upwards I saw immense masses of locusts moving [Page 905] over the city in a northern direction, so dense as to sensibly obscure the light of the sun, and causing the roaring sound I had heard as they moved rapidly along.
It appears that the locust invaded Venezuela in formidable numbers at Maraeaibo and vicinity on the 29th and 30th of May, 1881 (see the account thereof which I gave in my No. 418 and its annex, of date June 26 of that year), and that they have spread eastward over the country, and continued in it from that time hitherto, doing much damage—so much so that the Government alleges “the devastating plague of locusts” as being the cause of that scantiness of grains produced in the country which has led it to the temporary removal of import duties on corn, rice, and beans.
Since the first appearance of locusts in Venezuela, in 1881, I have observed many swarms of them pass over Caracas, some continuing for a much longer time in their passage than those whose flight I observed on the 28th instant; but the masses of these last seemed to be more dense than any I had previously seen, and in no other instance do I recall the roaring sound with which their flight was attended.
I am, &c.,