138 ACTUAL EFFECTS OF THE SIMOOM. 



"That is not all/' added another; "when the water-bags are 

 partly shrunken, as are ours at this moment, and the Khamsin 

 blows for some time, it finishes by completely drying them up." 



Thus warned, M. Tre'maux was compelled to face, with all the 

 resignation he was capable of, the melancholy alternative of perishing 

 suffocated by the sand, or, a little later, of succumbing to the tortures 

 of thirst. He continued to journey, or rather to drag himself towards 

 the centre of the choking atmosphere, and to watch the scourge 

 which rapidly drew near. This lasted a couple of hours, after which 

 the travellers had the satisfaction of seeing the Simoom glide by on 

 their right, and depart with the same rapidity. 



A column of the French army, commanded by the Dukes of 

 Aumale and of Montpensier, had met with a less happy chance on 

 the 7th of March 1844, in the Souf, or Algerine Sahara ; it was 

 attacked by a Simoom, which prolonged its furious assaults during 

 fourteen hours. On the day following, M. Fournel, a mining 

 engineer who accompanied the expedition, ascertained that the 

 meteor had swept but a narrow zone parallel to the Aures range, and 

 that at the mountain base the tranquillity of the atmosphere had been 

 undisturbed. 



The Simoom, or Khamsin, is, however, more troublesome and 

 painful than really dangerous. M. Martins speaks of the annihilated 

 army of Cambyses, the Persian king, which perished in the Libyan 

 Desert (B.C. 524),* and of whole caravans engulfed in the sepul- 

 chral sands. "The numerous skeletons of camels," he adds, "which 

 we met with on our way prove that these catastrophes are still of 

 frequent occurrence." It is more probable, however, that they died 

 from dearth of water and want of food. As for the Persian host, it 

 was probably swallowed up in one of those quicksands, those hidden 

 treacherous gulfs, which are found in the deserts of Libya, as well 

 as in those of Persia and Arabia. The evil effects of the Simoom 

 have, in fact, been exaggerated by the Arabs, whose highly-coloured 

 narratives have been too easily adopted by credulous travellers. It 

 * Philip Smith, " History of the World," i. 286. 



