AN EGYPTIAN REGIMENT LOST IN THE SAND. 391 



phantoms of the desert, only to find that they are 

 nothing. One might, for instance, have supposed that 

 in Egypt, at any rate, everybody would have been 

 more or less familiar with mirage, and that people 

 would have been less liable there, than elsewhere, to 

 be deceived by it, yet Sir Samuel Baker in his " Nile 

 Tributaries of Abyssinia " relates the story of the total 

 loss of an Egyptian regiment in this way. This 

 catastrophe occurred about 1820 on the section of 

 desert between Korosko and Abou Hammed, of which 

 we have already spoken : where the caravan route cuts 

 across the chord of the arc formed by the great 

 bend of the Nile between these points. Sir Samuel 

 Baker gives the following account of the disaster: 



"Many years ago, when the Egyptian troops first conquered 

 Nubia, a regiment was destroyed by thirst in crossing this 

 desert. The men being upon a limited allowance of water, 

 suffered from extreme thirst, and deceived by the appearance 

 of a mirage that exactly resembled a beautiful lake, they 

 insisted upon being taken to its banks by the Arab guide. 

 It was in vain that the guide assured them that the lake 

 was unreal, and he refused to lose the precious time by 

 wandering from his course. Words led to blows, and he was 

 killed by the soldiers whose lives depended upon his guidance. 

 The whole regiment turned from the track, and rushed 

 towards the welcome waters. Thirsty and faint, over the 

 burning sands they hurried .... farther and farther from the 

 lost track where the pilot lay in his blood: and still the 

 mocking spirits of the desert, the afreets of the mirage, led 

 them on, and the lake glistening in the sunshine tempted 

 them to bathe in its cool waters, close to their eyes, but 

 never at their lips. At length the delusion vanished the 

 fatal lake had turned to burning sand!" "Not a man 

 ever left the desert, but they were subsequently discovered, 



