The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-04-03
IN A SANDSTONE.
CARNIVAL OF THE WILD ELEMENTS
OF The SOUDAN.
The Perturbation 1t Carried to the Tent of
a Newspaper COrrespOndent-Genii
of Arab Folk Lore-Destruct-
i've sand BiIIows.
[DongoIa q. London News.I

lDongola Cor. London Newsl
Dongola was visited the other day by
sandstorm-to my idea the most dreadful of
/ storms. Was there ever such a one bsfore2
/ Millions, 1 suppose; but 1 never expert
/ enced one so bad. 1 must really use the
( penny -a-liners very convenient expression,
cit battles all description" and for that rea-
/ son l shall describe it. Our respectet friend,
( the penny liner, l observe, after stating
/ that thing baffied description, invariably
! tries to describe it. Why, then, should not
Il Midday, everything sweltering and
seething in the sun that happens to be ex-
! posed to it; rybody bubbling-posi-
lively bubbling-with perspiration, who hap
I pens to be in the shade; thermometer looks
as If it would burst-I am afraid to say how
high the mercury has risen-in fact, the
perspiration hours so into my eyes that
/ can not see the small figures. Rock and
sand pain the eye by their glare. A black
dense, mud-colored cloud suddenly appears
on the horizon at the south, at first a speck,
then growing larger and larger, rolling rap
idly toward US, now in the distance, now
nearer and nearer Down go tents and up
in the air go straw huts and sheds, while
the palm branches wave and nod like the
plumes of hearse caught in a gale, OF of
the helmet of knight at a mad galIop
On on, it rolls, that grimy fast-riding
ahead of me. The landscape is suddenly
enveloped in a black shroud. 1t bursts upon
my howell Away, away, away go my half
answered home letters. Who shall catch
them2 go: run after them; quickly,
quickly, boy" 1 am enveloped in sand.
Over goes my only globe lam.
crash! My bottle of seven days al
lowance of lime juice-it totters and
capsizes. Down come the spiders, and
away bolt the rats-whom l encourage
to run about and eat the scorpions cent?
pedes and white ants. In comes a flock of
little crimson headed bats, and tumble ex-
hausted. have no doors or windows to be
blown in, and there is no fear Of a shower Of
broken glass; such as ] have seen during
sirocco ON the shores of the Levant. Books,
sketches, writing paper, manuscript, linen,
lie scattered on the floor, l was going to say
no, the earth-we have no floors here in
Ethiopia-buried in q moment in black dust;
and over goes my only bottle Of cognac,
kept for medical purposes. Luckily the
cork was in. But the only bottle of whisky
an Irish friend had been at; he had left the
cork out; it was light, not much balance
left, and over it went An aroma of noun
tain dew pervades the room. Bisallah! 1t
was to have accompanied me across the
desert to Wady Halfa, where some say
Cambyses lost his army, though others near
Meroe.
L pun my uc1N OuI VI NY WlllON, WAS L
going to writeg-I mean square hole in
one of the four mud walls forming what is
called by courtesy a house. l was blinded
as quickly as any inhabitant of the cities of
the plain was by the hand of the angel.
My eyes were instantly filled with sand, ev-
cry molecule of which was burning spark
and every particle scintllation. 1t wear
led me to find my way to my-washing
stand; mean my pile of old wooden cases,
on which was carefully balanced my BASIN
an old biscuit tin, with ciassically- shaped
red amphora in it. Finding it at length |
cleanse my eyes, smarting with the fiery
dust, and put on pair of huge green Cog
gles-all glass; these are the only kind that
keep out the sand.
Thus armed looked forth into the NOV
ing mountain of sand. a burning blast,
like unto the breath Of a fiery furnace,
scorches my face, dries up my skin, stop
ping every pore. | look unto the heavens.
The sun was a blood-red ball of fire,
floating "al in hot and copper
a lurid light, such as one sees on the
ocean before storm. In the distance trees,
huts and tents were invisible; but near one
could just make out the winding, lead
colored Nile, dashed into pillows A dense
cloud, which enveloped all, seemed raining
fire. The atmosphere as if seething, boiling
suffering And now waltzing, whirling
along the DdnkS COME U10 "QeVilS' tSnay-
tams as the Arabs call them, the sand
spouts-aerial giants-each iudulging in a
pas seul, their huge, fantastic figures rear
ing their heads from earth to heaven. One
is reminded of the dim of the arabian
Nights let out of the casket in which King
Solomon had sealed him up and rising as a
tall column of smoke. How grim and grue-,
some are theyl No doubt the fanciful
ghouls, efreets, and genii of Arab folklore
DIRE w THAR ORIGIN from S1IPh q thaca
And destructive element are these roll
ing, spiral sand billows-powerful agents of
disintegration, having grinding, roughing
action on rocks and stone-as they ride the
whirlwind, accelerating destruction in
country replete with decaying pedigrees of
decay-a country where all changes are not
of life, but of Observation-Disclosures the char
acteristics of the scenery around are heaps
of rocks breaking into fragments And
these gusts of sand penetrate everywhere,
into clefts and assures of stones, eating into |
and sapping their foundations, and acting
with mechanical strength, lifting and roll
ing rock over rock.
There is a weird and CHASTITY dance all
around, in a dull and lurid glare Now am !
enveloped in heaving mountain of sand
the ar Is sitting, my mouth is parched, /
speech is impossible without wetting the lips,
the tongue is swollen never before prop |
erly understood "the darkness of the Egyp- /
tian plague" which could be felt" Half !
an hour-ths sand tornado has swept by. l !
can hear the rush of scared horses, mules, /
donl1eys, and cattle, as they rush madly by,
having broken loose; the tremendous gut
tural roar and grunting of camels the howl
ing of dogs, and the shrill scTeeching of vuI I
lures and kites flying before the gale All I
nature groans Half an hour-the Don
COLA carnival of the wild elements of the
rs 3udan" is over