VIOLENT WIND. 
43 
which time we experienced one of the discomforts of a tented life, in a 
gale of wind that blew from the southward and eastward, with such 
violence, that three of our largest tents were levelled with the ground. 
The wind brought with it such hot currents of air, that we thought it 
might be the precursor of the samoun^ described by Chardin ; but, upon 
enquiry, we found that the autumn was generally the season for that 
wind, and that its consequences, in the memory of the present inha¬ 
bitants, had never been so fatal as those mentioned by that traveller. 
The sam wind, as described to me by an old inhabitant of the Dashtistan, 
commits great ravages in this district, particularly at Dashtiarjan, and is 
hurtful to vegetation. It blows at night, from about midnight to sun¬ 
rise, comes in a hot blast, and is afterwards succeeded by a cold one. 
About six years ago there was a sam during the summer months, which 
so totally burnt up all the corn, then near its maturity, that no animal 
would eat a blade of it, or touch any of its grain. 
The image of corn blasted before it be groxvn up, used by the sacred 
historian in 2 Kings, xix. 26., was most probably taken from a cause 
similar to what has just been stated; and in the 7th verse, when 
speaking of the king of Assyria, the prophet says, I inill send a blast 
upon him, the allusion is also perhaps to the pestilential wind. In the 
Psalms we read of the wind which passeth over it (the grass), and it is 
gone, Psal. ciii. 15, 16. . 
Again, from the 23d to the 26th, the wind blew violently from the 
south-east, accompanied by a most sulFocating heat, and continued to 
blow with the same degree of strength until the next day at noon, when 
it suddenly veered round to the N. W. with a degree of violence equal 
to what it had blown from the opposite point. During all this time, 
the clouds of dust which arose, and which entered into every part of 
our tents, totally destroyed either comfort or rest. But when all had 
again subsided into calm, the- weather that succeeded was delightful. 
Nature, after her agitation, had acquired new beauties, and both man 
and animals seemed to joy in their existence. The south-east wind 
constantly brought with it innumerable flights of locusts, but those 
which fell on this occasion, we were informed, were not of the predatory 
G 2 
