24 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
tuse sight, and he becomes slowly conscious of some 
shadowy object, now lost, now seen again upon the 
clear horizon. Soon this vague shape may he traced 
by a clear outline upon the sky as it gradually assumes 
a deeper hue, and then appears like a gap or rent in 
the natural heaven, admitting the eye to penetrate to a 
second sky. I^ow as the vessel, hour by hour, holds 
on her course and diminishes the distance from the 
mountain, this illusion is dispersed, and the colour is 
changed from blue to a deep aerial grey, while a sharp 
streak of glittering light, glancing from its snowy top, 
plainly defines the form of the peak. 
But the circumstances under which Teneriffe is seen 
in the full force of its grandeur are the reverse of the 
foregoing description. When the winter months, com- 
mencing with November, bring in the dreary season of 
storm and hurricane, the howling south-east wind 
drives down successive volumes of black clouds across 
the desert of Sahara, from the tempestuous summits of 
the Jebel Kumra mountains ; and these accumulate 
around the peak, like evil spirits under its command, 
and, whirling round and round, open and close, and 
rise and fall upon its rugged sides, now exposing, now 
completely enveloping them, constantly clashing and 
revolving in strange uncouth contortions which baffle 
all attempts at description, and can only be compared 
to the mad orgies of a thousand genii. The hissing 
lightnings play from cloud to cloud, and the hoarse 
