66 THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY ; OR, 



imperceptible, may constitute the musical notes of the Bell 

 Mountain, or the lesser sounds of the trodden sea-beach at 

 Eigg." 



Here is a vigorous effort made to unlock the difficulty. I 

 should, however, have mentioned to the philosophic writer, 

 what I inadvertently failed to do, that the sounds elicited 

 from the sand of Eigg seem as directly evoked by the slant 

 blow dealt it by the foot, as the sounds similarly evoked from 

 a highly waxed floor, or a board strewed over with ground 

 rosin. The sharp shrill note follows the stroke, altogether 

 independently of the grains driven into the air. My omis- 

 sion may serve to show how much safer it is for those minds 

 of the observant order, that serve as hands and eyes to the 

 reflective ones, to prefer incurring the risk of being even 

 tediously minute in their descriptions, to the danger of being 

 inadequately brief in them. But, alas ! for purposes of exact 

 science, rarely are verbal descriptions other than inadequate. 

 Let us just look, for example, at the various accounts given 

 us of Jabel Nakous. There are strange sounds heard pro- 

 ceeding from a hill in Arabia, and various travellers set them- 

 selves to describe them. . The tones are those of the convent 

 Nakous, says the wild Arab ; there must be a convent buried 

 under the hill. More like the sounds of a humming top, re^ 

 marks a phlegmatic German traveller. Not quite like them, 

 says an English one in an Oxford gown ; they resemble rather 

 the striking of a clock. Nay, listen just a little longer and 

 more carefully, says a second Englishman, with epaulettes on 

 his shoulder : " the sounds at their commencement may be 

 compared to the faint strains of an ^Eolian harp when its 

 strings first catch the breeze," but anon, as the agitation of 

 the sand increases, they " more nearly resemble those pro- 

 duced by drawing the moistened fingers over glass." Not at 

 all, exclaims the warlike Zahor Ed-Din Muhammad Baber, 

 twirling his whiskers : "I know a similar hill in the country 



