66 WAVES OF SAND AND SNOW 



lee side. They appeared almost as independent 

 hills. But everywhere the loose sand lay deep, 

 and the wind was unable, therefore, to isolate any 

 mound of sand so as to shape it into a barchan 

 or crescentic dune. 



On the afternoon of the first day there was a 

 slight haze in the air due to suspended sand. I 

 was struck next morning by the changed appear- 

 ance of the scene. There was no haze in the 

 light of early day, but, on the contrary, an atlmo- 

 sphere of singular clearness. The steep slopes, 

 the sharp aretes, and the pyramidal peaks of the 

 sand-dunes stood out with an intensity of light 

 and shadow which, combined with uniformity of 

 tint, was more like lunar scenery as viewed with 

 a telescope than any terrestrial landscape which I 

 had hitherto seen. The slopes of the dunes were 

 smooth and unspotted, and in the absence of detail 

 or of objects of known size there was nothing to 

 provide a scale of magnitude. With a low sun, 

 which threw long, dark shadows, the dunes, with 

 their bold, mountainous forms, loomed immense, 

 and an unbiased observer might easily have sup- 

 posed their height to be thousands of feet instead 

 of one or two hundred. 



On the second day I camped on a plateau of 

 pure sand some 40 feet above a depression, where 



