some difficulty I could overtake them. "This stupendous sight caused Idris to repeat his prayers, or rather incantations; for, except the names of God and Mohammed, all the rest of his words were mere gibberish and nonsense. Ismael, the Turk, violently abused him for not praying in the words of the Koran, maintaining, with great apparent wisdom, that nothing else could stop these moving sands." They this day proceeded very slowly, their feet being sore and greatly swelled. "The whole of our company," says Bruce, "were much disheartened (except Idris), and imagined that they were advancing into whirlwinds of moving sand, from which they should never be able to extricate themselves; but, before four o'clock in the afternoon, these phantoms of the plain had all of them fallen to the ground and disappeared." In the evening they came to Waadi Dimokea, where they passed the night much disheartened; and their fear was not diminished on awaking in the morning, by finding that one side was perfectly buried in the sand that the wind had blown over them in the night. From this day, subordination, though not entirely extinct, was rapidly declining; all was discontent, murmuring, and fear. The water had greatly diminished, and that terrible death by thirst began to stare them in the face, owing, in a great measure, to their own imprudence. Ismael, who had been left sentinel over the skins of water, had slept so soundly that a Tucorory had opened one of the skins that had not been touched, in order to serve himself out of it at his own discretion; hearing somebody stir, however, and fearing detection, he withdrew as speedily as possible, without tying up the mouth of the girba, which was found in the morning with scarce a quart of water in it. On the 15th, the same moving pillars of sand presented themselves, only they seemed to be more in number and less in size. They came several times in a direction close upon them. "They began," says Bruce, "immediately after sunrise, like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun. His rays shining through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire. Our people now became desperate; the Greeks shrieked out, and said it was the day of judgment. Ismael pronounced it to be hell; and the Tucorories, that the world was on fire. I asked Idris if ever he had before seen such a sight; he said he had often seen them as terrible, though never worse; but what he feared most was that extreme redness in the air, which was a sure presage of the coming of the simoom. I begged and entreated Idris that he would not say one word of that in the hearing of the people, for they had already felt it at Imhanzara, in their way from Ras el Feel to Teawa, and again at the Acaba of Gerri, before we came to Chendi, and they were already nearly distracted at the apprehension of finding it here."