Accmmt of a Storm in the Desert. S19 



ters. The cavern is about one hundred and twenty feet in 

 height, fifty in breadth, and three hundred in length ; the en- 

 trance was completely invisible. By screaming in our ears, 

 the guide contrived to explain to us that there was one more 

 point which we might have reached had the wind been in any 

 other direction ; unluckily it blew full upon the sheet of the 

 cataract, and drove it in, so as to dash upon the rock over 

 which we must have passed. A few yards beyond this, the 

 precipice becomes perpendicular, and blending with the water, 

 forms the extremity of the cave. After a stay of nearly ten 

 minutes in this most horrible purgatory, we gladly left it to it^ 

 loathsome inhabitants, the eel and the water-snake, who crawl 

 about its recesses in considerable numbers, and returned to 

 the inn." — De Rods' Personal Narrative. 



4. Account of a Storm in the Desert. 



Suez, February 23, 1814. 



After having travelled all the morning in the bed of the 

 ancient canal that formerly connected the Red Sea with the 

 Mediterranean, but without being able to discover a vestige of 

 anything like masonry, or indication of the sluices by which 

 its waters were said to have been regulated, we had lost, at 

 noon, all traces of its course, though we continued our direc- 

 tion still northerly, inclining two or three points to the west, 

 until we gained the site of the Bitter Lakes, as they were call- 

 ed by the ancients, and named the Salt Marshes in more mo- 

 dern maps. We traversed it in every direction, however, for 

 a diameter of ten miles, having fleet trotting dromedaries be- 

 neath us, without finding the least portion of water, although 

 it had evidently been the receptacle of an extensive lake, and 

 was at this moment below the level of the sea at Suez. The 

 soil here diff'ers from all around it. 



On leaving the last traces of the canal, we had entered upon 

 a loose shifting sand ; here we found a firm clay mixed with 

 gravel, and perfectly dry, its surface encrusted over with a 

 strong salt. On leaving the site of these now evaporated lakes, 

 we entered upon a loose and shifting sand again, like that 

 which Pliny describes when speaking of the roads from Pe- 

 lusium across the sands of the desert ; in which, he says, unless 



