120 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, CHAP. XI. 



runs a risk of being overwhelmed by sand, as the 

 army of Cambyses was reported to have been.* 

 The notion is of old date, from Herodotus to the 

 modern traveller who confines his experience to 

 the valley of the Nile ; and if Strabo were listened 

 to, it would require some degree of courage to 

 visit the site of Memphis, lest, as he observes, the 

 imprudent stranger should expose himself to ** the 

 danger of being overtaken by a whirlwind on his 

 way."t 



Strabo, like other travellers^ must have braved 

 great dangers during his voyage ; the ancients were 

 alarmed at the sand, and wondrous monsters ; and 

 we now often read of narrow escapes from the 

 effects of a simoom .- but however disagreeable this 

 really is, and though caravans run the risk of losing 

 their way if incautious enough to continue their 

 route in its dense fog of dust, and consequently to 

 perish in this waterless region, the very impleasant 

 death, it has been reported to cause, is an exagge- 

 ration ; and, speaking from the experience of many 

 a violent simoom in the most sandy parts of the 

 desert, I can only say that it is bad enough wilh- 

 out being exaggerated, but that it is much more 

 frightful in a book of travels than in the country 

 itself. 



A remarkable feature in the Valley of Egypt, 

 which must strike every one who crosses the edge 

 of the alluvial land, is the line of demarcation be- 

 tween this and the desert, which is so strongly 



* Amman, sand, and the dust of the Pharaohs being united against it. 

 \ Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 555. 



