The evidence, however, seems to favour the view that the army proceeded westwards from Thebes, and passed safely through Kharga, possibly also through Dakhla; in those days the latter may have been coupled with Kharga, as it was later, when the two together were called the Great Oasis. As it is impossible to imagine a body comprising 50,000 men being destroyed by a sandstorm, I am inclined to agree with Hoskins that the army was purposely misled and sacrificed by the guides, with the object of preventing the capture of Siwa and the destruction of the far-famed temple of Jupiter Ammon. In the deserts to the north and west of Dakhla immense accumulations of sand cover, without a break, thousands of square miles of country; only one or two possible tracks cross this lonesome wilderness, and these, following narrow troughs hemmed in by hills of sand, are invisible even from the distance of a few hundred yards. Only a party thoroughly acquainted with desert travelling could hope to penetrate this region, and nothing would be easier than to encompass the loss of a large and unwieldy army among these terrible dunes. It seems probable, moreover, that this body of troops was as ill-equipped and badly led as the main army which at the same time was marching southwards to Ethiopia. Led by circuitous routes till they reached a point many marches distant from the nearest well, worn out by the incessant clambering over endless ridges of soft sand, their stores of water and food exhausted, their tracks obliterated by the ever-moving sand, the fate of the unfortunate soldiers, deserted at the last by the treacherous guides, could not long have remained in doubt.