At half past four o'clock in the afternoon they left Waadi Dell Aned. The sands scarcely showed themselves this day, and only at a great distance in the horizon. This was, however, a comfort but of short duration. Bruce observed that Idris took no notice of it, but warned him and the servants that, upon the coming of the simoom, they should fall on their faces, with their mouths upon the earth, so as not to inhale the outward air as long as they could hold their breath. They alighted at six o'clock at a small rock called Ras el Seah, or El Mout, which signifies _death_. It is surrounded with sand, is without trees or herbage, and the poor camels fasted all that night. On the 16th, at half past ten in the forenoon, they left El Mout. "Our men," says Bruce, "if not gay, were, however, in better spirits than I had seen them since we left Goos. One of our Barbarins had even attempted a song; but Hagi Ismael very gravely reproved him, by telling him that singing in such a situation was a tempting of Providence. There is, indeed, nothing more different than active and passive courage. Hagi Ismael would fight, but he had not strength of mind to suffer. At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with great pleasure the rugged top of Chiggre, to which we were fast approaching, and where we were to solace ourselves with plenty of good water, Idris cried out, with a loud voice, 'Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!' I saw from the southeast a haze come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and it moved very rapidly, for I scarce could turn to fall upon the ground, with my head to the northward, when I felt the heat of its current plainly upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The meteor or purple haze which I saw was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of a heat to threaten suffocation. For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part of it, nor was I free of an asthmatic sensation till I had been some months in Italy at the baths of Poretta, near two years afterward.[36]