228 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



fully to the disappointment, if the party had been much distressed for want of water. 

 The Sahara is now well known to be advancing from east to west, besides being in a 

 condition of internal instability, owing to the sand-storms altering the appearance of the 

 surface. The prevailing currents of air that sweep over it are from east to west, and the 

 flying sands travelling in that direction, there enlarge its bounds. The Wandering Sea 

 is one of the Arab titles of a sandy desert. 



The Sahara apparently terminates at the valley of the Nile, but the same identical 

 region is prolonged beyond that channel. It embraces nearly the whole of the Arabian 

 peninsula, which, excepting a few enclosed valleys, is a stony and barren tract, and 

 generally an infertile level, presenting great sandy plains, producing little besides the 

 acacia vera, or Egyptian thorn, and a few other plants. Beyond this is the Syrian 



Ruins of Palmyra from the Desert. 



desert, which lies between the range of Lebanon and the Euphrates, in the heart of which 

 is the oasis, containing the relics of one of the mysterious cities of antiquity, the Tadmor 

 in the wilderness of a remote time, the Palmyra of a more modern age. It is not difficult 

 to conceive of the effect of its ruins after passing through a waste in many places without 

 a single object showing either life or motion ; Corinthian columns of white marble 

 contrasting finely in their snowy appearance with the apparently boundless yellow sands, 

 the monuments of an opulence and art, every other trace of which has vanished with the 

 people by whom it was enjoyed. A day in this desert is admirably described by the 

 author of Eothen : "As you are journeying in the interior you have no particular 

 point to make for as your resting-place. The endless sands yield nothing but small 

 stunted shrubs ; even these fail after the first two or three days, and from that time you 

 pass over broad plains you pass over newly-reared hills you pass through valleys 

 that the storm of the last week has dug ; and the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, sand, 

 and only sand, and sand, and sand again. The earth is so sandy, that your eyes turn 

 towards heaven towards heaven, I mean, in the sense of sky. You look to the sun, for 

 he is your task -master, and by him you know the measure of the work that you have done, 



