38 JOURNEY FROM the sand, while some of them scarcely appeared above the summit.

Judging from the present appearance of Tagiura, we should imagine that many gardens, situated on its eastern limits, have been completely overwhelmed by these heaps.

Any object which is stationary would arrest the progress of sand borne towards it by the violence of the wind ; and the low enclosures of Arab gardens in exposed situations might in a few years disappear altogether.

We are not, however, inclined to attribute quite so much to the overwhelming properties of sand, as many other travellers have done ; and we do not think that the danger of being actually bui’ied will appear, on consideration, to be altogether so great, to those who are crossing sandy deserts, as writers of high respectability have asserted.

The sand which encounters a body in motion, would pass it, we should imagine, without accumulation; and the quantity which might even be heaped upon sleepers could scarcely be more than they might easily shake off in waking. We shudder at the dreadful accounts which have been recorded of whole caravans, and whole armies, destroyed by these formidable waves of the desert ; and when our pity is strongly excited by such relations, we are seldom inchned to analyze them very deeply. But a httle reflection would probably convince us that many of these are greatly exaggerated : some, because the writers believed what they related ; and some, because they wished their readers to believe what they might not be quite convinced of themselves.

In fact, we think, it probable that they who have perished