On the 29th, at seven o'clock in the morning, they left Abou Seielat; at about nine they saw before them the palm-trees of Assouan, and very shortly afterward reached a grove of palm-trees on the north of that city. In justice to Bruce's character, it is our duty to state, that we have given but a very imperfect idea of the real fatigue of this journey to Assouan; for, however weary the reader may have been with the desert from which he has just returned, however he may rejoice to quit the deep, heavy sand, and once more behold the fresh-flowing waters of the Nile, yet, in a _short half hour_, he has travelled from Gondar, a distance which it took Bruce _eleven months_ to perform--twelve weeks of which were spent in coming from Sennaar to Syene. Not only is it impossible adequately to describe, from the report of others, real sufferings and dangers, but those who have actually undergone either soon find it impossible to bring back an unfaded picture of them to the mind; of which there can be no stronger proof than the everyday occurrence of people cheerfully returning to difficulties which, while actually felt, they had firmly resolved never again to encounter. FOOTNOTE: [36] The appearance and effects of this "wind of the desert" are more fully described in the following account. "The sky, at other times serene and cloudless, appears lurid and heavy; the sun loses his splendour, and appears of a violet colour. The air, saturated with particles of the finest sand, becomes thick, fiery, and unfit for respiration. The coldest substances change their natural qualities; marble, iron, and water are hot, and deceive the hand which touches them. Every kind of moisture is absorbed; the skin is parched and shrivelled; paper cracks as if it were in the mouth of an oven. When inhaled by men or animals, the simoom produces a painful feeling, as of suffocation. The lungs are too rarefied for breathing, and the body is consumed by an internal heat, which often terminates in convulsions and death. The carcasses of the dead exhibit symptoms of immediate putrefaction, similar to what is observed to take place in bodies deprived of life by thunder, or the effect of electricity," &c. See _Crichton's History of Arabia_, vol. i., p. 63, _et seq._, Harpers' Family Library.--_Am. Ed._ CHAPTER XVII. Kind Reception at Assouan.--Arrival at Cairo.--Transactions with the Bey there.--Lands at Marseilles