Legends From River and Mountain by Carmen Sylva

Not far from the pretty little mountain-town of Câmpa Lungo, a clear, / cool stream winds along, called _Rîul Doamnei_ -- "the river of the / Princess. " This stream washes down gold along its bed, sometimes a bit / half the size of one's nail; and it was a custom in times gone by that / all the gold found there should belong to the Princess, the wife of the / ruler of the land. And this is the reason why: --

There was once a great famine in the land of Roumania, such a famine as / had never been known in the memory of man. First the locusts had come / into the land, in such swarms that the sun was darkened, and wherever / they settled they devastated everything, so that in a few minutes the / fairest field of corn would be left bald as a threshing-floor, and the / trees, stripped of every leaf, stretched out their naked boughs against / the summer sky, beneath whose cloudless blue the heat grew ever greater / and greater, so that even at night there was no longer a breath of / coolness in the air. As soon as all things around were devoured, the / cloud of locusts would arise, only to settle instantly again upon the / next green patch. And so it went on unceasingly; and in those days folk / were not so clever as they are now, when they cover the great stretches / of land where the insects have settled, with petroleum, and set it all / on fire. Nor were there then any cannon with which they could shoot / into the swarm of flying locusts, as they do now, and so sometimes / contrive to scatter them.