82 EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN.

resembling cannon shot and grape of all sizes, from a 32-pounder downwards — the spot looking like the old battle-field of some infernal region — rocks glowing with heat — not a vestige of vegetation — barren, withering desolation. Many of the " cannon shot" are as perfectly round as though cast in a mould, others are egg-shaped, and all are hollow. On breaking them they are found to contain light-red sand, and are, in fact, volcanic bombs formed by the ejection of molten lava to a great height from active volcanos; they become globular on falling, and having cooled before reaching the earth retain their forms as hard spherical bodies. The exterior is brown and appears to be rich in iron. The smaller specimens are the more perfect spheres, as they cooled quickly, but many of the heavier masses have evidently reached the earth when only half solidified and collapsed upon falling. The sandy plain is covered with such volcanic vestiges, and the bombs lie as imperishable relics of a hail-storm such as may have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

From this scene of solitude the traveller passes to another aspect of desolation, and in the hot season the burning simoom blows over the terrible wilderness and drifts the hot sand into the crevices of the rocks; but in the cooler night the air becomes invigorating and refreshing by contrast, and the desert has a peculiar charm as the horizon of its nakedness is limited: the rocks assume fantastic shapes in the bright moonlight, and the profound stillness produces an effect of the supernatural in that wild and mysterious solitude.

But there is no water. The well at Murahd is in an extinct crater surrounded on all sides by precipitous cliffs about 300 feet high. The bottom is a dead flat valley of sand 250 yards wide, and there the salt and bitter water is found at a depth of only about six feet, but only the camels can touch it, and the skeletons of camels lie in all directions — withered heaps of parched skin and bone, the dry desert air having converted the hides into leathern coffins, and as there are no flies, the crows — though even they are not always numerous in this valley of dry bones — despatch the inner carcasses. Many years ago, when the Egyptian hosts first conquered Nubia, a regiment was destroyed by thirst in crossing this desert. The men were on a limited allowance of water, and, deceived by the