Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1889-09-12
DESERT SAND SPOUTS.
Graphic Description of Striking
Scene in Africa.

Under the fairest skies the desert is an
awesome sulitude, but when a storm comes
it is terrible and appalling shall never
forget a scene witnessed some forty miles
beyond the great pyramids, says writer
in the New New York Mail and Express. 1
had gained an isolated hillotk some two
hundred feet above the level of the sur
rounding desert Away to the west, about
two miles distant, deserted elk or seven
lofty pillars of sand moving swiftly over
the undulating plain. The center one of
these was vertical, and those surrounding
it, at a distance of two or three hundred
yards, leaned slightly toward it, The sand
at the base of the columns was lashed by
the furious whirlwind into a surging sea-
Desert trees of the hardest wood were torn
up with their roots and hurled hundreds of
yards away and high up into the air even
the grass that grew in the path of that ter
rible storm was shorn clean away from its
roots. The SUBMITS of those columns of
sand at length joined, and then burst forth
from their united tops yellow, gigantic
cloud of sand of such magnitude and
density as to darken, as in a total eclipse.
the face of the bright afternoon sun. The
sand spout, called by the natives "zoba-
hah," shortly after subsided, but the cloud
of sand and grass, which had been raised
high in the heavens, continued to darken
the setting sun for more than an hour. The
smaller columns behind travelled swiftly.
increasing in size until it reached the site
of the breakup of the other, and then
added it's mite to the universal destruction.
With my sextant as / stood in security,
r tha ha;n nf
umn of sand; it was nearly one thousand
feet. The other columns were rising so
rapidly that they soon reached greater
height than that of the center column.
When the junction of them all took place
the sudden eruption of sand. leaves and
grass reached to total height of over four
thousand feet. These "zobahahs" are not
very frequent, but when they occur they
carry widespread devastation along with
them and woe betide the traveller and the
tent that happens to stand in their way.
Not more than ten yards from the column
the air is perfectly calm, but within the
small circumscribing circle there RACES
such tempest az will carry away any
thing, however firmly fixed in the ground,
into the regions of the upper air as easily
as an ordinary gust of wind will blow
piece OF paper. The camel, this wonderful
ship of the desert always knows a few
hours before whether one of those ap-
proachiT "zobahahs" is likely 70 come
upon him. and his natural instinct will
guide him to place of safety, where he
lies down and only breathes the cool, re-
active current which closely follows the
burning, almost suffocating hot air which
accompanies the ''zobahahs." The usual
movements of these sand spouts is in the
arc of wide circle, and the direction of
the center of the circle is almost invaribly
from north to south
When these awful turmoils are over and
the Disturbing elements have resumed
their natural state, the burning sand be-
comes saturated with heavy dew, the
sun is less angry, and the African desert
more amenable to life in both man and
beasts. Natures wisdom and wonders are
indeed beyond mans limited understand
ing