After a prayer of peace, we committed ourselves to the Desert. Our party consisted of Ismael the Turk, two Greek servants besides Georgis, who was almost blind and useless, two Barbarins, who took care of the camels, Idris, and a young man a relation of his; in all nine persons. We were all well armed with blunderbusses, swords, pistols, and double-barrelled guns, except Idris and his lad, who had lances, the only arms they could use. Five or six naked wretches of the Turcorory joined us at the watering place, much against my will, for I knew that we should probably be reduced to the disagreeable alternative of either seeing them perish of thirst before our eyes, or, by assisting them, running a great risk of perishing along with them.

We left Gooz on the 9th of November, at noon, and halted at the little village of Hassa, where we filled our water-skins—an operation which occupied a whole day, as we had to take every means to secure them from leaking or evaporation. While the camels were loading, I bathed myself with infinite pleasure for a long half hour in the Nile, and thus took leave of my old acquaintance, very doubtful if we should ever meet again. We then turned to the north-east, leaving the Nile, and entering into a bare desert of fixed gravel, without trees, and of a very disagreeable whitish colour, mixed with small pieces of white marble, like alabaster. Our camels, we found, were too heavily loaded; but we comforted ourselves with the reflection, that this fault would be remedied by the daily consumption of our provisions. We had been travelling only two days when our misfortunes began, from a circumstance we had not attended to. Our shoes, that had long needed repair, became at last absolutely useless, and our feet were much inflamed by the burning sand.

On the 13th, we saw, about a mile to the northwest of us, Hambily, a rock not considerable in size, but, from the plain country in which it is situated, having the appearance of a great tower or castle. South of it were too smaller hills, forming, along with it, landmarks of the utmost consequence to caravans, because they are too considerable in size to be at any time covered by the moving sands. We alighted on the following day among some acacia trees, after travelling about twenty miles. We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight, surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at one time moving with great celerity, at another stalking on with majestic slowness. At intervals we thought they were coming to overwhelm us; and again they would retreat, so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon, they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us, about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at S.E., leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger; and the full persuasion of this rivetted me to the spot where I stood, and let the camels gain on me so much, that, in my state of lameness, it was with some difficulty I could overtake them. The effect this stupendous sight had upon Idris was to set him to his prayers, or rather to his charms; for, except the names of God and Mahomet, all the rest of his words were mere gibberish and nonsense. Ismael the Turk violently abused him for not praying in the words of the Koran, at the same time maintaining, with great apparent wisdom, that nobody had charms to stop these moving sands but the inhabitants of Arabia Deserta.

From this day subordination, though it did not entirely cease, rapidly declined; all was discontent, murmuring, and fear. Our water was greatly diminished, and that terrible death by thirst began to stare us in the face, owing, in a great measure, to our own imprudence. Ismael, who had been left sentinel over the skins of water, had slept so soundly, that a Turcorory had opened one of the skins that had not been touched, in order to serve himself out of it at his own discretion. I suppose that, hearing somebody stir, and fearing detection, the Turcorory had withdrawn himself as speedily as possible, without tying up the month of the girba, which we found in the morning with scarce a quart of water in it.

On the 16th, our men, if not gay, were in better spirits than I had seen them since we left Gooz. The rugged top of Chiggre was before us, and we knew that there we would solace ourselves with plenty of good water. As we were advancing, Idris suddenly cried out, "Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!" I saw from the southeast a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and moved very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground, with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor or purple haze which I saw was indeed past, but the light air that still blew was of a heat to threaten suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free from an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, nearly two years afterwards.

This phenomenon of the simoom, unexpected by us, though foreseen by Idris, caused us all to relapse into our former despondency. It still continued to blow, so as to exhaust us entirely, though the blast was so weak as scarcely would have raised a leaf from the ground. Towards evening it ceased; and a cooling breeze came from the north, blowing five or six minutes at a time, and then falling calm. We reached Chiggre that night, very much fatigued.

BRUCE'S TRAVELS.

[Note:James Bruce (born 1730, died 1794), the African traveller; one of the early explorers of the Nile.]

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