398 FROSTS IN THE DESERT. 



so much as 50, and in three nights as near the freezing 

 point as 38^, 37-! and 36. My first annoyance was due 

 to an error all are liable to. I asked and listened to some 

 one I had thought expert, persuading me to leave in London 

 the furs I desired to bring. I am often favoured with advice 

 of this kind before starting on journeys" * 

 and unfortunately errors of this sort cannot afterwards 

 be remedied by the traveller. 



Mr. Falkonberg goes on to give a resume of the 

 experiences of former travellers in this respect, and 

 states that " Duveyrier registers frost twenty-six times 

 between December and March, in the plains of the 

 Central Sahara. Bromfield speaks of sharp hoar frost, 

 and ice a quarter of an inch thick, at Rhoda, on the 

 Nile, in 28 Lat. The Imperial Gazetteer says as 

 much about Syene. Durham and Clapperton mention 

 hard frost, occurring at 13 Lat. in the Southern 

 Sahara. Captain Lyon records six degrees of frost 

 in the Libyan deserts," and so forth, f 



These vast dry plains are also visited by piercingly 

 cold winds during the winter season these Northers 

 appear to be prevalent at this season of the year 

 everywhere throughout the Desert Zone in the northern 

 hemisphere, and corresponding phenomena are also 

 met with in the southern hemisphere, during their 

 winter season. Mr. Falkonberg states in the Nile 

 Deserts that during the first two months of his service 

 there (Dec. 1875 and Jan. 1876) these winds blew 

 steadily for several hours in the mornings this 

 qualification of the expression " burning desert, " he 

 reminds us, does not seem generally known, the 



* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, pp. 12, 13. 

 \ Ibid., p. II. 



