A SEA OF SAND. 469 hills of Arcadia, in Greece, and in Monte Albano near Rome.

Their soft, clear, pale-violet hue showed with the loveliest effect behind the velvety green of the thick palm clusters, which were parted here and there by gleams of the bright blue river. From the northern end of Sai, the river gradually curves to the east. The western shore is completely invaded by the sands, and the road takes a wide sweep inland to avoid the loose, sliding drifts piled up along the bank. We had not gone far before we found a drift of brilliant yellow sand thirty feet high and two hundred yards in length, lying exactly across our road. It had evidently been formed within a few days.

It was almost precisely crescent-shaped, and I could not account for the action of the wind in building such a mound on an open plain, which elsewhere was entirely free from sand. We rounded it and soon afterwards entered on a region of sand, where to the west and north the rolling yellow waves extended to the horizon, unbroken by a speck of any other color. It was a boundless, fathomless sea of sand to the eye, which could scarcely bear the radiated light playing over its hot surface. The day (for a wonder) was somewhat overcast, and as the shadows of small clouds followed one another rapidly over the glaring billows, they seemed to heave and roll like those of the sea. I was forced to turn away my head, faint and giddy with the sight. My camels tugged painfully through this region, and after two hours we reached a single sont tree, standing beside a well, and called sugger el-abd (the Tree of the Slave). It was pointed out by the camel-men as being half-way between El Ordee and Wadi Haifa.

We journeyed on all the afternoon through a waste of sandy and stony ridges, and as night drew near, I became anxious to