140 LOSS OF THE ARMY OF CAMBYSES. 



that anyone underneath them would certainly be 

 buried alive. The exaggerated tales respecting such 

 things circulated by the Arabs, even to the present 

 day, sound not a little alarming; and there is the 

 well-known instance mentioned by Herodotus, * when 

 the army of the Persian monarch Cambyses, consisting 

 of 50,000 men, was, in the sixth century before Christ, 

 buried in the drifting sands during its march across 

 the Libyan Desert, f But we shall refer to this event 

 more particularly in our next chapter. 



For ourselves, however, we are inclined to disbelieve 

 altogether the story of their destruction by being 

 buried in sand, as we think it much more probable 

 that an army of this size perished through losing their 

 way, either through the want of proper guides or the 

 treachery of those employed, which would of course 

 entail the loss of the whole force, by thirst ; the bodies 

 of the dead would most probably then be gradually 

 covered by the drifting sands, which would give them 

 the appearance of having perished by being thus buried, 

 during life, in a sandstorm. Our experience of desert 

 marches teaches us that any little obstacle whatsoever 

 will collect the sand drift, which will form a dune 

 around it until the whole is completely hidden from 

 view. The buried tombs and temples of ancient Egypt 

 are good examples of this, and the curious reader will 

 find many other details relative to such matters, which 

 we trust may prove both interesting and instructive, 

 in our section on "The Desert Zone." 



* History by Herodotus, Thalia, Book iii, Caput. 26 Translated by 

 Henry Gary, M.A., 1891, p. 152. 



f The data of this catastrophe is generally set down as occurring in 

 the year 524 B.C. 



