I 860-71 
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/ ! ’ 
' 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 
o 
VOL. II. 
