348 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



the journey are forgotten, and all longings are satisfied, for water 

 flows abundantly and takes the place of all that one might desire in 

 other places or at other seasons. 



Such a rest revives body and soul. Strengthened and encour- 

 aged the caravan goes on its way, and if the days bring nothing 

 worse than scorching, thirst, and fatigue, a second, and a third well 

 is safely reached, and finally the goal of the journey — the first 

 township on the other side of the desert. But the desert — the sea 

 of sand — is like the all-embracing ocean also in that it is fickle. 

 For here too there are raging storms, which wreck its ships 

 and raise destruction-bringing billows. When the north wind, 

 which blows continuously for months, comes into conflict with 

 currents from the south, or yields them the mastery, the traveller 

 suddenly sees the sand become alive, rising in huge pillars as thick 

 as they are high, which whirl more or less rapidly over the plain. 

 The sun's rays sometimes lend them the ruddy gleam of flames, at 

 another time they seem almost colourless, yet again, portentously 

 dark, the furious storm weakens them and strengthens them, splits 

 them and unites them, sometimes merging two or more into one 

 huge sand-spout which reaches to the clouds. Well might the 

 Occidental exclaim at the sublimity of the spectacle, did not the 

 anxious looks and words of his escort make him dumb. Woe to the 

 caravan which is overtaken by one of these raging whirlwinds, 

 it will be good fortune if man and beast escape alive. And even if 

 the inexorable messenger of fate pass over the party without doing 

 harm, danger is by no means over, for behind the sand-spouts 

 usually comes the Simoom or poisonous storm. 



This ever-dreaded wind, which blows as the Chamasin through 

 Egypt, as the Sirocco towards Italy, as the Fohn through the Alps, 

 as the Tauwind in North Europe, does not always rise into a 

 storm; not unfrequently it is hardly noticeable, and yet it makes 

 many a man's heart tremble. Of course much that is fabulous is 

 told of it, but this much is true, that it is in certain conditions 

 extremely dangerous to the caravan, and that it is responsible for 

 the bleached skeletons of camels and the half-buried, half-mummi- 

 fied, corpses of men that one sees by the wayside. It is not its 



