I 86q-7 I THE DESERT 193 



so got our carriage. Those who stayed later did 

 not get home till six or seven, through difficulties 

 with their various conveyances. Estimates of the 

 cost of this ball, bridge included, with the illumina- 

 tions in the gardens, its kiosque, grottos, &c, 

 ranged from 20., 000/. to 100,000/. ! ' 



1 2\st. — Made an expedition, consisting of a 

 carriage with four horses, also six donkeys and 

 nine men, to the Desert in order to inspect the 

 petrified forest. Drove along, escorted by donkey 

 boys, through a very finely wooded suburb and 

 came upon the Desert, where the Tombs of the 

 Caliphs — mosque-like structures of the colour of 

 the ground — rise in great number and various 

 proportions ; then on and on over the roughest 

 ground under difficulties — not from sand but mud, 

 the Desert being saturated by the extraordinary 

 rainfall and presenting exactly the appearance 

 of the sands at Morecambe Bay. The nature of 

 this boundless tract as an upraised sea-bed was 

 vividly impressed upon me. Owing to the rain 

 the scattered clumps of Desert shrubs were at 

 their greenest, and snails of new forms to me 

 were feeding on them. ... As we approached 

 the scene and object of our journey, detached 

 bits of petrified palms were to be picked up, 

 with odd fossil oysters and murex shells. I 

 suppose the palms must have been floated down 

 on some branch of the Nile when the Desert 

 was a delta, their own natural silex attracting 



vol. 11. o 



