The consequence of this improvident obstinacy was, that his soldiers, who had lived on herbs so long as the earth produced anything, began to live upon each other when they reached the sandy desert. Cambyses had no relish for this sort of supper, whether he was to eat, or, like Polonius, to be eaten, and at length turned back, not before he had lost a large part of his army. The other detachment advanced deep into the desert, whence they returned not, nor was it known what became of them. The Ammonians said that a mighty south–west wind had overwhelmed them with sand. The circumstances of their supposed destruction are powerfully though rather extravagantly described by Darwin:— “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. Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge, Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge; Wave over wave the driving desert swims; Bursts o’er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs; Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush, Hosts march o’er hosts, and nations nations crush,— Wheeling in air the winged islands fall, And one great earthy ocean covers all!— Then ceased the storm.—Night bowed his Ethiop brow To earth, and listened to the groans below.— Grim Horror shook—awhile the living hill Heaved with convulsive throes—and all was still!”[138]