Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-08-14
FABLES OF DESERTS.
SOME MISTAKES CORRECTED IN THE
i LIGHT OF EXPERIENCE.
Notions About Sandstorms.
They Are Had Enough, but Not So Bad as
Painted-The Fable of the Cancels Water
Reservoir.

Painted-The Fable of the Camels Water
Reservoir.
We owe the peculiar existing ideas of the
nature of deserts and the supposed dangers
connected with a journey across them to the
notes of the earlier travellers and explor-
ers of the century. Renowned travellers,
such as Cassati, Rohlfs, LEM, Nachtigal,
ETC., have in their various works and lee
lures tried In vain to throw the search
light of their experience on the prevalent
ideas of these "fables of the desert" and
have shown, citing their own experience
as a guarantee for truth, that the greater
number of these SO called dangers of the
desert are mere pictures of imagination
and nothing else.
There are still great many people in
the world whose imagination brings be-
fore their minds eye the desert as bound
less ocean of sand which the winds and
storms keep in constant turmoil, and
which create the SO much dreaded, SO
much heard of, sandstorms which they
tell us at times bury whole caravans of
man and beast and wares beneath its I'M
dulating, cruel sands. How different Is
the reality
Each desert, whether located in Africa,
Asia or America, has within it's bound
aries without doubt, stretches of sand
large enough to be compared to an ocean
of sand. Take the Sahara, for instance,
which is correctly named the desert of
DESERTS" and you find such an area situat-
ed west of Egypt, geographically known
as the Lybian desert, but every desert,
and tho Sahara in particular, offers other
landscapes than this. Enormous plateaus
yes even mountain chains, some of the
peaks rising to an altitude of 5000 feet
can be found within its limits and give
far more variety to the scenery of the des-
ert than the groups of GASES which bob up
from the plains here and there like green
islands in an ocean.
And now to the sandstorms. Is the
'samum, as it is called, really q poison
which brings destruction to man and
beast? Just as we discriminate between
wind and a storm, just so the Sahara has
sand winds and sandstorms. Nachtigal,
tho great explorer, relates that during
visit at 'Mursuk" the air was so filled
with sand and dust that everything on tho
oasis-tho green in the gardens, the palms,
etc.--was changed to a dirty grayish color,
and such a vel, of dust covered the heav
ems that the sun appeared as a mere white
speck.
This was the result of sand wind. The
"samum," or sandstone, makes its ap-
pearance in quite different manner.
About an hour, or even more, before it
reaches you heavy yellow clouds of sand
appear OH the horizon. The atmosphere is
heavy and charged with electricity. A
tired feeling befalls man and beast and
the camcls become unruly. The camels
are forced to lie down, their heads with
the wind. Men and women cover them
selves with their clothes, doing their best
to have their faces we'll concealed The
''samum" generally lasts from 10 to 80
minutes and is frequently accompanied by
a very heavy rainfall.
A ''samum with such a downpour was
encountered by Rohlfs ON Easter Monday
April ~, 1879. The air was leaden. The
wind changed to a regular hurricane
Rohlfs had his tent, which was tho largest
of the caravan, taken down and crawled
underneath the canvas, awaiting the
bride of the desert" as the Bedouin calls
the "samum.' The storm became fierccr
and fierccr, thick clouds of which you
could not tell were they sand or masses of
steam circlcd with terrific velocity over
the heads of the travellers. A cannonade
of thunder vibratcd the earth. Once in
awhile you heard the cracking of a palm as
the storm broke it in two. Then the
storm lifted the tent like balloon, and,
to make the confusion perfect, the rain
came down in such a volume that "a few
seconds sufliced to drench to the skin
Then all OF a sudden, as if by magic, it
became wonderfully still, and the glorious
sun appeared again in the purcst and
bluest of ethers, and its powerful tropical
rays soon dried everything Without a
doubt the "samum" is one of the worst
plaques of the desert. 1t weakens man and
beast, and the sand and dust which are
driven before it force their way through the
smallest crevices and thickcst covers and
permeate the mouth, nose and eyes, but not
in such quantities that they cannot be got
rid of with case The very finest sand
even forces its way into watches, but none
of 1T will sutfocate man or animal
A 'samum" ever SO severe might cover
a whole caravan with heavy pail of dust
and sand, but never throw up such noun
tains of sand as to bury a whole caravan.
MS 10 oIly oilt VI plIc Vi tllc
desert These sandstorms can, it is TRUE,
become dangerous to travellers, but in a
quite different manner. The stock of wa
ter for a caravan is generally carried in
goatskins. They are not particularly good
reservoirs, however, for they soon allow an
enormous quantity of their contents to
evaporate, a result of the extraordinary
heat sendstorm brings with it. This
evaporation, now and then, takes such pro-
portions that whole caravan might die
of thirst, especially when the hot sand
storm has dried up all the springs and
pools on the way.
Another fable Of the desert found in the
schoolbooks everywhere is that the camel
carries water reservoir in its stomach,
and that the Bedouins of the desert when
they are near death from thirst kill the
camel and grecdily drink the water sup
posed to be in its stomach. In the desert
the fable is unknown. People whose home
Is in the desert can bear thirst much easier
than we can. The sons of the desert have
peculiar idea that we live in lakes and
swamps, and that we carry on semiam-
phibious existence, for to the Arabs the
great quantities of liquids we drink are as
enigmatical as their abstinence therefrom