There was no garden, there were no fields of maize or buckwheat, there was no longer a farm--the kraal stood in the midst of a desert! Words cannot depict the emotions of the field-cornet at that moment.
The pen cannot describe his painful feelings.
Such a change in two hours! He could scarce credit his senses--he could scarce believe in its reality.

He knew that the locusts would eat up his maize, and his wheat, and the vegetables of his garden; but his fancy had fallen far short of the extreme desolation that had actually been produced.

The whole landscape was metamorphosed--grass was out of the question--trees, whose delicate foliage had played in the soft breeze but two short hours before, now stood leafless, scathed by worse than winter.

The very ground seemed altered in shape! He would not have known it as his own farm.

Most certainly had the owner been absent during the period of the locust-flight, and approached without any information of what had been passing, he would not have recognised the place of his own habitation! With the phlegm peculiar to his race, the field-cornet sat down, and remained for a long time without speech or movement.
His children gathered near, and looked on--their young hearts painfully throbbing.