Such a rest revives body and soul. Strengthened and encouraged the caravan goes on its way, and if the days bring nothing worse than scorching, thirst, and fatigue, a second, and a third well is safely reached, and finally the goal of the journey—the first township on the other side of the desert. But the desert—the sea of sand—is like the all-embracing ocean also in that it is fickle. For here too there are raging storms, which wreck its ships and raise destruction-bringing billows. When the north wind, which blows continuously for months, comes into conflict with currents from the south, or yields them the mastery, the traveller suddenly sees the sand become alive, rising in huge pillars as thick as they are high, which whirl more or less rapidly over the plain. The sun’s rays sometimes lend them the ruddy gleam of flames, at another time they seem almost colourless, yet again, portentously dark, the furious storm weakens them and strengthens them, splits them and unites them, sometimes merging two or more into one huge sand-spout which reaches to the clouds. Well might the Occidental exclaim at the sublimity of the spectacle, did not the anxious looks and words of his escort make him dumb. Woe to the caravan which is overtaken by one of these raging whirlwinds, it will be good fortune if man and beast escape alive. And even if the inexorable messenger of fate pass over the party without doing harm, danger is by no means over, for behind the sand-spouts usually comes the Simoom or poisonous storm.
This ever-dreaded wind, which blows as the Chamasin through Egypt, as the Sirocco towards Italy, as the Föhn through the Alps, as the Tauwind in North Europe, does not always rise into a storm; not unfrequently it is hardly noticeable, and yet it makes many a man’s heart tremble. Of course much that is fabulous is told of it, but this much is true, that it is in certain conditions extremely dangerous to the caravan, and that it is responsible for the bleached skeletons of camels and the half-buried, half-mummified, corpses of men that one sees by the wayside. It is not its strength, but its character, its electric potential, which brings suffering and destruction to man and beast wandering on the sandy sea.
The natives and the observant can foretell the coming of the sand-storm at least one day, often several days, ahead. Unfailing symptoms tell of its approach. The air becomes sultry and oppressive; a light, grayish or reddish vapour obscures the sky; and there is not a breath of wind. All living creatures suffer visibly under the gradually increasing sultriness; men grumble and groan; the wild animals are shyer than usual; the camels become restless and cross, jostling one another, jibbing stubbornly, even lying down on the ground. The sun sets without any colour; no red-glow fringes the evening sky; every light is veiled in a vaporous shroud. Night brings neither coolness nor refreshment, rather an aggravation of the sultriness, the lassitude, the discomfort; in spite of all weariness one cannot sleep. If men and beasts are still able to move, no rest is taken, but they hurry on with the most anxious haste as long as the leader can see any of the heavenly bodies. But the vapour becomes a dry fog, obscuring one constellation after another, hiding moon and sun, though in the most favourable conditions these may be visible, about half their normal size, pale in colour and of ill-defined contour.
Sometimes it is at midnight that the wind begins to raise its wings; more commonly about noon. Without a watch no one could tell the time, for the fog has become so thick that the sun is completely hidden. A gloomy twilight covers the desert, and everything even within a short radius is hazy and indistinct. Gently, hardly perceptibly the air at length begins to move. It is not a breeze, but the merest breath. But this breath scorches, pierces like an icy wind into bone and marrow, producing dull headache, enervation, and uneasiness. The first breath is followed by a more perceptible gust, equally piercing and deadening. Several brief blasts rage howling across the plain.
It is now high time to encamp. Even the camels know this, for no whip will make them take another step. Panic-stricken they sink down, stretch out their long necks in front of them, press them closely on the sand, and shut their eyes. Their drivers unload them as rapidly as possible, build the baggage into a barricade, and heap all the water-bags closely together, so as to present the least possible surface to the wind, and cover them with any available mats. This accomplished, they wrap themselves as closely as may be in their robes, moisten the part which surrounds the head, and take refuge behind the baggage. All this is done with the utmost despatch, for the sand-storm never leaves one long to wait.
Following one another in more rapid succession, the blasts soon become continuous, and the storm rages. The wind roars and rumbles, pipes and howls in the firmament; the sand rushes and rages along the ground; there is creaking and crackling and crashing among the baggage as the planks of the boxes burst. The prevailing sultriness increases till the limit of endurance seems all but reached; all moisture leaves the sweat-covered body; the mucous membranes begin to crack and bleed; the parched tongue lies like a piece of lead in the mouth; the pulse quickens, the heart throbs convulsively; the skin begins to peel, and into the lacerations the raging storm bears fine sand, producing new tortures. The sons of the desert pray and groan, the stranger murmurs and complains.
The severest raging of the sand-storm does not usually last long, it may be only for an hour, or for two or three, just like the analogous thunder-storm in the north. As it assuages the dust sinks, the air clears, perhaps a counter-breeze sets in from the north; the caravan rearranges itself and goes on its way. But if the Simoom last for half a day or for a whole day, then it may fare with the traveller as it did with an acquaintance of mine, the French traveller Thibaut, as he journeyed through the Northern Bahiuda desert. He found the last well dry, and with almost exhausted water-bags he was forced to push on towards the Nile, four days’ journey off. On him and his panic-stricken caravan, which had left every dispensable piece of baggage at the dry well, the deadly storm broke loose. The unfortunate company encamped, hoped for the end of the storm, but waited in vain, mourning, desponding, desperate. One of Thibaut’s servants sprang up maddened, howled down the storm, raged, and raved, and at last, utterly spent, fell prostrate on his master, gasped, and died. A second fell victim to sunstroke, and when the storm at last abated was found dead in his resting-place. A third lingered behind the rest after they had started again on their life-or-death race, and he also perished. Half of the camels were lost. With the remnant of his company Thibaut reached the Nile, but in two days his coal-black hair had become white as snow.
To such storms are due the mummied corpses which one sees by the path of the caravan. The storm which killed them also buries them in the drifting sand; this removes all moisture so quickly that the body, instead of decaying, dries up into a mummy. Over them one wind casts a shroud of sand, which another strips away. Then the corpse is seen stretching its hand, its foot, or its face towards the traveller, and one of the drivers answers the petition of the dead, covers him again with sand, and goes on his way, saying, “Sleep, servant of God, sleep in peace.”
To such storms are also due the dream-pictures of the Fata Morgana which arise in the minds of the survivors. As long as a man pursues his way with full, undiminished strength and with sound senses, the mirage appears to him merely as a remarkable natural phenomenon, and in no wise as Fata Morgana. During the hot season, especially about noon, but from nine in the morning until three o’clock, the “devil’s sea” is to be seen daily in the desert. A gray surface like a lake, or more accurately like a flooded district, is formed on every plantless flat at a certain distance in front of or around the traveller; it heaves and swells, glitters and shimmers, leaves all actually existing objects visible, but raises them apparently to the level of its uppermost stratum and reflects them down again. Camels or horses disappearing in the distance appear, like the angels in pictures, as if floating on clouds, and if one can distinguish their movements, it seems as if they were about to set down each limb on a cushion of vapour. The distance which limits the phenomenon remains always the same, as long as the observer does not change his angle of vision; and thus it varies for the rider and the pedestrian. The whole phenomenon depends on the well-known law, that a ray of light passing through a medium which is not homogeneous is refracted, and thus it is inevitable, since the lower strata of air become expanded by reflection of heat from the glowing sand. No Arab hides his face when he sees a mirage, as fanciful travellers assure their credulous readers; none puts any deep interpretation on the phrase which he likes to use—“the devil’s sea”. But when the anxiety, distress, enervation, and misery consequent on a sand-storm beset and weaken him, and the mirage appears, then it may become a Fata Morgana, for the abnormally excited imagination forms pictures which are in most perfect harmony with the most urgent desire of the moment—the desire for water and for rest. Even to me, who have observed the mirage hundreds of times, the Fata Morgana appeared once. It was after four-and-twenty hours of torturing thirst that I saw the devil’s sea sparkling and gleaming before me. I really thought I saw the sacred Nile and boats with full-bellied sails, palm-groves and woods, and country-houses. But where my abnormal senses perceived a flourishing palm-grove, my equally abnormal comrade saw sailing-boats, and where I fancied I recognized gardens, he saw not less imaginary woodland. And all the deceptive phantasms vanished as soon as we were refreshed with an unexpected draught of water; only the nebulous gray sea remained in sight.
Perhaps every one who crosses a stretch of desert in the Nile-lands sees the devil’s sea; but there is a real and most living desert picture, a sight of which is not granted to all. On the extreme limit of vision, raised perhaps by the mirage and veiled in vapour, a number of riders appear; they are mounted on steeds swift as the wind, with limbs like those of deer; they approach rapidly, and urging to full gallop the steeds which till then they had restrained, they rush down upon the caravan. It always gave me pleasure to meet these haggard, picturesquely-clad men; they and their horses seemed to be so thoroughly harmonious with the desert. The Bedouin is indeed the true son of the desert, and his steed is his counterpart. He is stern and terrible as the desert day, gentle and friendly as the desert night. True to his pledged word, unswerving in obedience to the laws and customs of his race, dignified in bearing, lofty in discourse, unsurpassed in self-restraint and endurance, more sensitive than almost any other man to deeds of prowess, to glory and honour, and not less to the golden web of fancy into which his poetic genius weaves such wondrous pictures and twines such tender fragrant flowers; yet is he cunning and crafty towards his enemies, a bounden slave to his customs, unscrupulous in his demands, mean and paltry in his exactions, greedy in his pleasures, unrestrained in cruelty, terrible in revenge, to-day the noble host, to-morrow a threatening and shameless beggar, now a proud robber and again a pitiable thief. In short he is to the stranger as fickle and changeful as the desert itself. His horse has the same keen, fiery, expressive eyes, the same strength and agility in its thin, almost fragile limbs, the same endurance, the same frugality, the same nature as his master, for they grew up together under the same tent, they rest and dwell beneath the same roof. The animal is not the slave but the companion, the friend of its master, the playmate of his children. Proud, spirited, and even savage in the open desert, it is as quiet as a lamb in the tent; it seems altogether inseparable from its master.