These are quite a blessing in the country,
so much so that the RAIN-DOCTORS sometimes promised to bring them
by their incantations. The locusts are strongly vegetable in taste,
the flavor varying with the plants on which they feed. There is
a physiological reason why locusts and honey should be eaten together.
Some are roasted and pounded into meal, which, eaten with a little salt,
is palatable. It will keep thus for months. Boiled, they are disagreeable;
but when they are roasted I should much prefer locusts to shrimps,
though I would avoid both if possible.
In traveling we sometimes suffered considerably from scarcity of meat,
though not from absolute want of food. This was felt more especially
by my children; and the natives, to show their sympathy,
often gave them a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish;
these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them
in large quantities themselves.
Another article of which our children partook with eagerness
was a very large frog, called "Matlametlo".*
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* The Pyxicephalus adspersus of Dr. Smith. Length of head and body,
5-1/2 inches; fore legs, 3 inches; hind legs, 6 inches.
Width of head posteriorly, 3 inches; of body, 4-1/2 inches.
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These enormous frogs, which, when cooked, look like chickens,
are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds,
because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled
and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking,
pugnacious game.
