THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA. 171 



incoming of this season also is terrible. For the same wind, which, 

 in the desert, becomes the simoom, raises its wings as herald of the 

 spring. It rages through the fissures in the ground, sweeps out 

 more dust, whirls it aloft in thick masses, and builds it into wall- 

 like clouds, which it drives roaring and howling through the land, and 

 forces through the latticed windows of the comfortable town-houses 

 as well as through the low doorways of the native huts, adding a 

 new plague to the existing torments. At last the wind gains com- 

 plete mastery and exerts its force without restraint, as though it 

 would annihilate everything that still resisted; but it is this same 

 wind that, farther south, piles up the clouds heavy with rain, and 

 sweeps them towards the scorched land. Soon it seems as if the 

 sultriness began to grow less oppressive as the wind gathered 

 strength; it seems even as if it sometimes blew no longer hotly but 

 refreshingly. And this is no deception; the spring is preparing for 

 its coming, and on the wings of the storm the rain-clouds are borne. 

 In a short time, in the south, they darken the dome of heaven; in a 

 few days quivering flashes lighten the dull cloud-banks; in a few 

 weeks the distant thunder heralds the life-giving rain. 



Then all the streams from the south rise and surge and overflow. 

 They are scarcely yet turbid, but they have life now; they continue 

 to rise, and through all the deeper rents and fissures of their muddy 

 banks the life-giving moisture is diffused into the adjacent country. 

 The birds of passage begin to appear, and day by day their numbers 

 increase. To the lands of the Upper Nile the storks return to take 

 possession of their old nests on the conical straw huts of the natives, 

 and with them comes the sacred ibis to perform to-day the duty 

 which has been his for thousands of years, to be the messenger and 

 herald assuring all that the old Nile -god will again open the foun- 

 tain of his mercy, and pour forth his horn of blessing on the lands 

 which own his sway. 



At length the first thunder-storm draws near. Sultriness more 

 painful than ever oppresses the dead, scorched land. An eerie still- 

 ness fills man and beast with uneasiness. Every song, nay, 1 almost 

 every voice of birds is hushed, and they hide themselves amid the 

 thickest foliage of the evergreens. In the camp of the nomad 



