Thus warned, M. Trémaux was compelled to face, with all the resignation he was capable of, the melancholy alternative of perishing suffocated by the sand, or, a little later, of succumbing to the tortures of thirst. He continued to journey, or rather to drag himself towards the centre of the choking atmosphere, and to watch the scourge which rapidly drew near. This lasted a couple of hours, after which the travellers had the satisfaction of seeing the Simoom glide by on their right, and depart with the same rapidity.
A column of the French army, commanded by the Dukes of Aumale and of Montpensier, had met with a less happy chance on the 7th of March 1844, in the Souf, or Algerine Sahara; it was attacked by a Simoom, which prolonged its furious assaults during fourteen hours. On the day following, M. Fournel, a mining engineer who accompanied the expedition, ascertained that the meteor had swept but a narrow zone parallel to the Aurès range, and that at the mountain base the tranquillity of the atmosphere had been undisturbed.
The Simoom, or Khamsin, is, however, more troublesome and painful than really dangerous. M. Martins speaks of the annihilated army of Cambyses, the Persian king, which perished in the Libyan Desert (B.C. 524),[61] and of whole caravans engulfed in the sepulchral sands. “The numerous skeletons of camels,” he adds, “which we met with on our way prove that these catastrophes are still of frequent occurrence.” It is more probable, however, that they died from dearth of water and want of food. As for the Persian host, it was probably swallowed up in one of those quicksands, those hidden treacherous gulfs, which are found in the deserts of Libya, as well as in those of Persia and Arabia. The evil effects of the Simoom have, in fact, been exaggerated by the Arabs, whose highly-coloured narratives have been too easily adopted by credulous travellers. It heats the blood, it dries the skin, it renders respiration troublesome; but it does not kill.
It is not always a single wind which blows in the Deserts; but sometimes two or three currents, from opposite directions, cross and clash and drive against one another with increasing fury. Then is produced the singular phenomenon of the sand-spout, often witnessed on a magnificent scale in the sandy plains of Eastern Asia and Southern America. The sand is not now driven in voluminous masses in a rectilineal direction; but raised aloft in the form of long tortuous columns, which whirl to and fro like gigantic spectres in the mazes of a wild demon-dance. At the same time, the azure of the sky grows pale and troubled, the sun’s light obscured, the boundaries of the horizon seem to meet together; the burning dust held in suspension in the air renders it irrespirable, and if one of these whirlwinds encounters any object which offers a resistance, it carries it upward and hurls it a considerable distance. Fortunately the phenomenon is one of brief duration. The atmospheric equilibrium is speedily restored; the heavens recover their serenity; the atmosphere grows clear, and the sand columns, falling in upon themselves, form a number of little hills or cones, apparently constructed with great care, like those mimic edifices of sand or snow built up by children in their pastimes.
It is said that these furious whirlwinds have occasionally engulfed whole caravans in their tremendous vortex,—
“Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,
Hosts march on hosts, and nations nations crush;
Wheeling in air the wingèd islands fall,
And one great sandy ocean covers all.”