August, September and October.  I was informed that vast swarms of locusts appear in this country some years, in such infinite numbers as to darken the air, and even to hide the sun from view, covering the horizon as far as the eye can reach, which is from twelve to sixteen miles in compass; and, wherever they settle they strip the ground entirely bare.  These locusts are like grasshoppers, as long as ones finger, and of a red and yellow colour.  They come every third or fourth year, and if they were to pay their visits every year, there would be no living in the country.  While I was on the coast, I saw them in prodigious and incredible numbers.

[1] The distance between Tisheet and Tombuctu, according to our best maps,
    is about 560 miles E. and by S. In the same proportion, supposing
    Tisheet to be Teggazza, the distance between Tombuctu and Melli ought
    to be about 420 miles.  Of Melli we have no traces in our modern maps,
    but it may possibly be referred to Malel, the apparent capital of
    Lamlem; see Pinkert.  Geogr.  II. 917, as laid down from the Arabian
    geographers, nearly 1200 miles E.S.E. from Tombuctu.—­E.

[2] This story is probably a fiction, proceeding upon a trade of barter
    between parties who did not understand the languages of each other. 
    The succeeding part of the story seems a mere fable, without the
    smallest foundation whatever.—­E.

[3] Few persons, perhaps, will be disposed to think the credit of the
    Africans, however positive, or the belief of the author, however
    strong, sufficient evidence of the truth of this story.  Yet it
    certainly is a common report of the country, and not the invention of
    Cada Mosto.  Jobson, who was at the Gambra or Gambia in 1620, repeats
    the whole substance of this story; and Movette relates the
    circumstances of the blacks trafficking for salt without being seen,
    which he had from the Moors of Morocco.  He leaves out, however, the
    story of the frightful lips.  Every fiction has its day; and that part
    is now out of date.—­Astl.

[4] Melli being itself unknown, we can hardly look to discover the
    situation of Kokhia or Cochia; but it may possibly be Kuku, a town and
    district to the N.E. of Bornou, which lies in the direction of the
    text; or it may be Dar Kulla, greatly more to the S.W. but still in
    the same track.—­E.

[5] In Grynaeus this place is called Ato.  As in the direction of the
    caravan from Tombuto towards Tunis, it may possibly be Taudeny, an
    ouasis or island of the great desert, in lat. 21 deg. 30’ N.—­E.

[6] Called Hona in Grynaeus.  What part of Barbary this name may refer to
    does not appear.  But the passage ought perhaps to run thus, “to Oran
    by the Mountain of Wan,” as there is a range mountains of that name
    to the S. E. of Oran, which joins the chain of Atlas, or the Ammer
    Mountains.—­E.