CHAPTER XLII. 
IN THE BAN OF THE DESERT 
APRIL 23rcl. It proved to be a warm day: but the 
camels had profited from their rest, and we did 
seventeen miles before halting. At first our route lay 
across the thinly grassed dusty steppe, which stretched 
away south-eastwards from the lake, and was dotted all 
over with small mounds and terraces of clay, that bore 
a striking resemblance to houses. After we had gone 
about an hour and a half, the sand began to take the 
form of low furrowed ridges. Then ten minutes further 
on and we were in the midst of a regular chaos of sand- 
dunes, all linked together, running without break one 
into another. Their prevailing direction was from north- 
east to south-west, and their steeper faces all fronted 
towards the south, south-west, and west. They were 
20 to 25 feet high, and often extremely difficult to get 
over. My men called them yatnan-kmn (hateful sand), 
chong-kum (big sand), and ighiz-ktim (high sand) ; to their 
crests or summits they gave the name of beles (pass). 
Already we perceived several peculiar sand formations. 
When two systems of sea-waves clash together, they 
mount on the top of one another up to double their 
original height. In like manner some of these gigantic 
sand-waves were piled up in pyramidal masses over- 
topping the level of the rest. This was where two 
separate dunes were driven one across the other by the 
ever-varying winds. 
Right across our path, running from north-north-east to 
south-south-west, was a ridge of gigantic dunes, exceeding 
in altitude all others we could see ; they were probably 
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