60 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



bread. The first European travellerwho visited JabelNakous, 

 says Sir David, was M. Seetzen, a German. He journeyed 

 for several hours over arid sands, and under ranges of preci- 

 pices inscribed by mysterious characters, that tell, haply, of 

 the wanderings of Israel under Moses. And reaching, about 

 noon, the base of the musical fountain, he found it composed 

 of a white friable sandstone, and presenting on two of its 

 sides sandy declivities. He watched beside it for an hour 

 and a quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undu- 

 lating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, 

 which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased 

 again ; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the 

 act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet 

 louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing from 

 under his knees, beneath which the sand, disturbed by his 

 efforts, was sliding downwards along the surface of the rock. 

 Concluding that the sliding sand was the cause of the sounds, 

 not an effect of the vibrations which they occasioned, he 

 climbed to the top of one of the declivities, and, sliding down- 

 wards, exerted himself with hands and feet to set the sand in 

 motion. The effect produced far exceeded his expectations : 

 the incoherent sand rolled under and around in a vast sheet ; 

 and so loud was the noise produced, that " the earth seemed 

 to tremble beneath him to such a degree, that he states he 

 should certainly have been afraid if he had been ignorant of 

 the cause." At the time Sir David Brewster wrote (1832), 

 the only other European who had visited Jdbel Nakous was 

 Mr Gray, of University College, Oxford. This gentleman 

 describes the noises he heard, but which he was unable to 

 trace to their producing cause, as " beginning with a low con- 

 tinuous murmuring sound, which seemed to rise beneath his 

 feet," but " which gradually changed into pulsations as it be- 

 became louder, so as to resemble the striking of a clock, and 

 became so strong at the end of five minutes as to detach the 



