On the 17th of November they left the wells, and resumed their march through the desert. Having journeyed on during the greater part of the day, amused rather than terrified by the moving sand-columns, with which they were now become familiar, they halted late in the afternoon in a vast plain, “bounded on all sides by low sandy hills, which seemed to have been transported thither lately. These hillocks were from seven to thirteen feet high, drawn into perfect cones, with very sharp points, and well-proportioned bases. The sand was of an inconceivable fineness, having been the sport of hot winds for thousands of years.” These cones, in fact, were nothing more or less than the relics of a group of sandy pillars, which had been perhaps on the previous day in motion; and had they then advanced so far, might have overwhelmed them in their fall. Marks of the whirling motion of the pillars were distinctly seen in every heap. In the course of the next day they passed by the spot where, but a few years before, one of the largest caravans that ever came out of Egypt, amounting to some thousands of camels, and conducted by the Ababdé and Bishareen Arabs, had been overwhelmed by a sand-storm; and the heaps which probably had collected over their bodies had somewhat raised the level of the desert in that place. Here numbers of gray granite rocks were scattered over the plain. A little beyond this they came to a wood of dwarf acacia-trees, which furnished a little browsing to their camels.