There was a slight check as we neared the end of the fields, from which I guessed that Wrexham was getting his bearings; then the leading camel’s bell rang out again on the chill dawn air, the ghostly great beasts in front of me quickened their pace once more, and we passed out into the desert. The full dawn saw us just emerging from the last vegetation, odd dried-up thickets and reeds, while in front lay the rolling low sand-dunes that were to be our home for some time to come. The air was cold and still, a blessing for which we were devoutly thankful. The first day we had looked out over the desert there had been a strong northeast wind, which blew great yellow sand-spouts along, blinding us from time to time. But to-day, as if for a favourable omen, hardly a breath stirred, and the blue distances were clear. At first we passed over ground covered with fine soft dust, here and there splashed with white and grey salt deposits that crackled underfoot, and now and then small terraces of friable clay, last relics of the days when all this area was the bottom of the great inland sea. Then, after an hour or so, we got into low sand-ridges, the high-water mark of the restless ocean, which stretched before us on three sides as far as the eye could reach. A little farther and we were well out of our depth--to continue the simile of the sea--in ridges and ridges of sand from ten to fifteen feet high, like the breakers along a coast, swelling up gently from the direction of the prevailing northeast wind, and steeper-faced--sometimes almost concave at the top--on the south and west where we approached them, for all the world like waves about to break and solidified in the process. All day we travelled hour after plodding hour through this trackless sea of fine greyish sand. The last of the scanty vegetation had been left behind when we made our midday halt, not a blade of grass, not a tamarisk, nothing but sand, utterly void of life. The sun beat down on to the sand, and the glare was blinding, but even at midday the heat was not oppressive. We were thankful for our coloured glasses, and even the two Punjabis were glad to put on those we had brought for them, much as they had jested at the idea at first. We covered eighteen miles that day, and camped in a little valley among the dunes, where by good fortune we found some dried-up tamarisk roots, which gave us a good fire, for the evening temperature fell fast once the sun was down, and we were glad enough to slip into our _poshtins_ once more. The heat absorbed by the sand in the day radiates off at an immense pace after dusk, if one can talk about that period of the day, almost non-existent in sand countries. After our evening meal that night, we decided--as we had previously arranged--to tell the men something about our destination. We began with the two Punjabis.