arrival of the caravan, which they plunder without mercy, leaving the unfortunate merchants entirely destitute.

The food, dress, and accommodations of the people who compose the caravans, are simple and natural. Being prohibited by their religion the use of wine and intoxicating liquors, and exhorted by its principles to temperance in all things, they are commonly satisfied with a few nourishing dates, and a draught of water, travelling for weeks successively without any other food. At other times, when they undertake a journey of a few weeks across the desert, a little barley meal, mixed with water, constitutes their only nourishment. In following up this abstemious mode of life, they never complain, but solace themselves with the hope of reaching their native country, singing occasionally during the journey, whenever they approach a habitation, or when the camels are fatigued. Their songs are usually sung in trio; and those of the camel-drivers who have musical voices, join in the chorus. These songs have a surprising effect in renovating the camels; while the symphony and time maintained by the singers, surpass what any one would conceive who has not heard them.The day's journey is terminated early in the afternoon, when the tents are pitched, prayers said, and the supper prepared by sun-set. The guests now arrange themselves in a circle, and, the sober meal being terminated, converse till they are overcome by sleep. At day-break next morning, they again proceed on their journey.

PILGRIMAGE ACROSS THE DESERTS.

THE following very lively description of a pilgrimage across the desert is given by Ali Bey, in his travels in Morocco, Tripoli, &c. It is an animated picture which pourtrays in the strongest colours the perils and sufferings encountered in these enterprises.

"We continued marching on in great haste, for fear of being overtaken by the four hundred Arabs whom we wished to avoid. For this reason we never kept the conmon road, but passed through the middle of the desert, marching through stony places, over easy hills. This country is entirely without water; not a tree is to be seen in it, not a rock which can afford a shelter or shade. A transparent atmosphere, an intense sun, darting its beams upon

our heads, a ground almost white, and commonly of a concave form, like a burning glass; slight breezes, scorching like a flame. Such is a faithful picture of this district, through which we were passing.

"Every man we meet in this desert is looked upon as an enemy. Having discovered about noon a man in arms, on horseback, who kept at a certain distance, my thirteen beduins united the moment they perceived him, darted like an arrow to overtake him, uttering loud cries, which they interrupted by expressions of contempt and derision; as, "What are you seeking, my brother ?" "Where are you going, my son?" As they made these exclamations they kept playing with their guns over their heads. The discovered beduin profited of his advantage, and fled into the mountains, where it was impossible to follow him.We met no one else.

"We had now neither eaten nor drank since the preceding day; our horses and other beasts were equally destitute; though ever since nine in the evening we had been travelling rapidly. Shortly after noon we had not a drop of water remaining, and the men, as well as the poor animals, were worn out with fatigue. The mules, stumbling every moment, required assistance to lift them up again, and to support their burden till they rose. This terrible exertion exhausted the little strength we had left.

"At two o'clock in the afternoon a man dropped down stiff, and as if dead, from great fatigue and thirst. I stopt with three or four of my people to assist him. The little wet which was left in one of the leathern budgets, was squeezed out of it, and some drops of water poured into the poor man's mouth, but without any effect. I now felt that my own strength was beginning to forsake me; and becoming very weak, I determined to mount on horseback, leaving the poor fellow behind. From this moment others of my caravan began to drop successively, and there was no possibility of giving them any assistance; they were abandoned to their unhappy destiny, as every one thought only of saving himself. Several mules with their burdens were left behind, and I found on my way two of my trunks on the ground, without knowing what was become of the mules which had been carrying them, the drivers

having forsaken them as well as the care of my effects and of my instruments.

I looked upon this loss with the greatest indifference, as if they had not belonged to me, and pushed on. But my horse began now to tremble under me, and yet he was the strongest of the whole caravan. We proceeded in silent despair. When I endeavoured to encourage any of the party to increase his pace, he answered me by looking steadily at me, and by putting his fore finger to his mouth to indicate the great thirst by which he was affected. As I was reproaching our conducting officers for their inattention, which had occasioned this want of water, they excused themselves by alledging the mutiny of the oudaias; and besides, added they, "Do we not suffer like the rest?" Our fate was the more shocking, as every one of us was sensible of the impossibility of supporting the fatigue to the place where we were to meet with water again. At last, at about four in the evening, I had my turn and fell down with thirst and fatigue.

Extended without consciousness on the ground, in the middle of the desert, left only with four or five men, one of whom had dropped at the same moment with myself, and all without any means of assisting me, because they knew not where to find water, and, if they had known it, had not strength to fetch it, I should have perished with them on the spot, if Providence, by a kind of miracle, had not preserved us.

Half an hour had already elapsed since I had fallen senseless to the ground, (as I have since been told,) when, at some distance, a considerable caravan, of more than two thousand souls was seen advancing. It was under the direction of a marebout or saint called Sidi Alarbi, who was sent by the Sultan to Ttemsen or Tremecen. Seeing us in this distressed situation, he ordered some skins of water to be thrown over us. After I had received several of them over my face and hands, I recovered my senses, opened my eyes, and looked around me, without being able to discern any body. At last, however, I distinguished seven or eight sheriffs and fakeers, who gave me their assistance, and shewed me much kindness. I endeavoured to speak to them, but an invincible knot in my

throat seemed to hinder me; I could only make myself understood by signs, and by pointing to my mouth with my finger.

They continued pouring water over my face, arms, and hands, and at last I was able to swallow small mouthfulls. This enabled me to ask, 'Who are you? When they heard me speak, they expressed their joy, and answered me, 'Fear nothing; far from being robbers, we are your friends,' and every one mentioned his name. I began by degrees to recollect their faces, but was not able to remember their names. They poured again over me a still greater quantity of water, gave me some to drink, filled some of my leather bags, and left me in haste, as every minute spent in this place was precious to them, and could not be repaired.

This attack of thirst is perceived all of a sudden by an extreme aridity of the skin; the eyes appear to be bloody, the tongue and mouth both inside and outside are covered with a crust of the thickness of a crown piece; this crust is of a dark yellow colour, of an insipid taste, and of a consistence like the soft wax from a beehive. A faintness or languor takes away the power to move; a kind of knot in the throat and diaphragm, attended with great pain, interrupts respiration. Some wandering tears escape from the eyes, and at last the sufferer drops down to the earth, and in a few moments loses all consciousness. These are the symptoms which I remarked in my unfortunate fellow travellers, and which I experienced myself.

I got with difficulty on my horse again, and we proceeded on our journey. My Beduins and my faithful Salem were gone on different directions to find out some water, and two hours afterwards they returned one after another, carrying along with them some good or bad water, as they had been able to find it; every one presented to me part of what he had brought; I was obliged to taste it, and I drank twenty times, but as soon as I swallowed it my mouth became as dry as before; at last I was not able either to spit or to speak.

The greatest part of the soil of the desert consists of pure clay, except some small traces of a calcareous nature. The whole surface is covered with a bed of chalky calcareous stone of a whitish colour, smooth, round, and loose,

and of the size of the fist; they are almost all of the same dimension, and their surface is carious like pieces of old mortar; I look upon this to be a true volcanic production. This bed is extended with such perfect regularity, that the whole desert is covered with it; a circumstance which makes pacing over it very fatiguing to the traveller.

Not any animal is to be seen in this desert, neither quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, nor insects, nor any plant whatever; and the traveller who is obliged to pass through it, is surrounded by the silence of death. It was not till four in the evening that we began to distinguish some small plants burnt with the sun, and a tree of a thorny nature without blossom or fruit."

SANDS OF THE DESERT.

Now o'er their head the whizzing whirlwinds breathe,
And the live desert pants, and heaves beneath;
Tinged by the crimson sun, vast columns rise
Of eddying sands, and war amid the skies,
In red arcades the billowy plain surround,
And stalking turrets dance upon the ground.

DARWIN.

In the pathless desert, high mounds of sand, shifting with every change of wind, surround the travellers on every side, and conceal from his view all other objects. There the wind is of a surprising rapidity, and the sand so extremely fine, that it forms on the ground waves which resemble those of the sea. These waves rise up so fast, that in a very few hours a hill of from twenty to thirty feet high is transported from one place to another. The shifting of these hills, however, does not take place on a sudden, as is generally believed, and is not by any means capable of surprising and burying a caravan while on the march. The mode in which the transposition of the hills takes place is not difficult of explanation. The wind sweeping the sand from the surface continually, and that with an astonishing rapidity, the ground lowers every moment: but the quantity of sand in the air increasing as quickly by successive waves, cannot support itself there, but falls in heaps, and forms a new hill, leaving the place it before occupied level, and with the appearance of having been swept.