94 A DESERT WIND STORM. 



Further to the southward, in the Desert Zone, these 

 sudden storms frequently come up, accompanied by 

 threatening masses of clouds, sometimes of inky black- 

 ness, and wind squalls of excessive violence: but 

 nevertheless the rainfall itself fails ; or perhaps a few 

 heavy drops only are all that descend. These pheno- 

 mena are very common in Upper Egypt and Nubia, 

 and upon the Red Sea, during the winter season. 

 The German traveller Dr. Klunzinger supplies us with 

 a good description of one of these storms, witnessed 

 by him at the desert port of Koseir (Lat. 26 6 X 24 7/ N.) 

 on the eastern seaboard of Egypt. 



" On such occasions (he tells us) it is by no means un- 

 common for the greater number of vessels in the harbour 

 to be wrecked. One can foretell the approach of such a wind 

 by the rise of a small white cloud, in the eastern horizon, 

 after a period of almost perfect calm : a slight breeze, gra- 

 dually increasing in strength, then rises; the suspicious little 

 cloud approaches with astonishing rapidity, and in a brief 

 space a raging, howling tempest prevails."* 



The resemblance between the coming up of this 

 storm, and that described in the Book of Kings, in 

 every respect, except as regards the rain, will doubtless 

 strike the reader : but we must remember that the one 

 at Koseir occurred in what may be regarded as a 

 practically rainless region. In the equatorial zone, the 

 same phenomenon is constantly witnessed, accompanied 

 not only by torrential rains, but also generally by 

 heavy thunderstorms. The following is a description 

 of one witnessed at sea, in the " Doldrums " or belt 

 of equatorial calms 



* Upper Egypt, Its People and Its Products, by C. B. Klunzinger, 

 M.D., formerly Egyptian Sanitary Physician at Koseir, 1878, p. 289. 



