Djemal Pasha put some thousands of Arab soldiers at his disposition, and these were set to work digging trenches into which the hatching locusts were driven and destroyed.

This is the only means of coping with the situation: once the locusts get their wings, nothing can be done with them.

It was a hopeless fight.

Nothing short of the cooeperation of every farmer in the country could have won the day; and while the people of the progressive Jewish villages struggled on to the end,--men, women, and children working in the fields until they were exhausted,--the Arab farmers sat by with folded hands.

The threats of the military authorities only stirred them to half-hearted efforts.
Finally, after two months of toil, the campaign was given up and the locusts broke in waves over the countryside, destroying everything.