THE EARTH. 305 



cients, instantly kills all those that it involves in 

 its passage. What its malignity consists in, none 

 can tell, as none have ever survived its effects to 

 give information. It frequently, as I am told, 

 assumes a visible form ; and darts in a kind of 

 bluish vapour, along the surface of the country. 

 The natives, not only of Persia, but Arabia, talk 

 of its effects with terror ; and their poets have 

 not failed to heighten them with the assistance 

 of imagination. They have described it as under 

 the conduct of a minister of vengeance, who go- 

 verns its terrors, and raises or depresses it as he 

 thinks proper.* These deadly winds are also 

 known along the coasts of India, at Negapatam, 

 Masulipatam, and Petapoli. But, luckily for 

 mankind, the shortness of their duration dimi- 

 nishes the injuries that might ensue from their 

 malignity.t 



The Cape of Good Hope, as well as many 

 islands in the West Indies, are famous for their 



* Herbelot. Bibliotheque Oriental. 



[f "At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with great pleasure the rug- 

 ged tops of Chiggre, to which we were fast approaching, and where we expect- 

 ed to solace ourselves with plenty of good water, Idris (Mr Bruce's guide) 

 cried out, " Fall on your faces, for here is the simoom." I saw, from 

 the S. E. a haze come, in colour like the purple part of a 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 it moved very rapidly ; for I could scarce 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 upon the ground as if dead, till 

 Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze which I saw, 

 was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten 

 suffocation : for my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had im- 

 bibed a part of it ; nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation, till I had 

 been some months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, near two years after- 

 wards. ' ' Bruce's Travels. ] 



VOL. I. U 



