The rhinoceros-like Arsinotheres of Egypt in the Eocene Period,
attacked by a pack of hyena-like Pterodons.]
“I hate to leave here, Uncle George,” said the boy, looking around
him regretfully, “it’s all been so jolly and everything has seemed so
new. But,” he added, with the action of brushing insects away from
his eyes which had become habitual after the weeks spent on the edge
of the desert, “I admit I’ll be glad to get away from the flies.”
Two days later, the caravan was once more upon the move. Back again
over the trail to Tamia they went, passing by the ruined temple of
Qasr el Sagha, seeing the ruins of Dine in the distance; not far
from the place where Perry had found the Eosiren, and on through the
little village of Kom Mushim, a mere cluster of huts on the edge of
an ancient Egyptian city. Thence through fields of roses, from which
the famous attar of roses is made, the camels passed and on to the
headquarters of the expedition at Tamia, where an Arab entertainment
was given by the Mamour of the district in honor of the expedition.
Next day the homeward journey was begun. Up through the Fayum hollow,
again, the camels climbed and out on the desert beyond. Not skirting
the edge of the Nile this time, but striking boldly over the waste,
Michawi led the caravan, and the noon halt came in the open blaze of
the sun, the pyramids of Ghizeh showing faintly in the distance.
The party had hardly traveled more than an hour’s journey after
the halt, when a queer hot whiff of air reached Perry’s nostrils.
He remembered the smoking sands that he had seen from the crest of
the cliff above the camp, when looking over the Libyan desert, and
glanced over his shoulder. The camel drivers had noted it, too, but
there was no gain in urging the camels onwards, even if the animals
could have been persuaded, safety was too far away.
In front of them was a line of low sand-dunes, and before they
reached this, Michawi halted the caravan. The camels knelt down,
laid their necks along the ground and closed their nostrils with the
special protection Nature has given them. Every one dismounted, and
the Arabs threw themselves upon the stony ground, to leeward of their
camels, covering their faces with their garments.
“Lie down, Perry,” said his uncle, who was following the Arabs, “you
can’t stand up and defy a Sahara sand-storm that way!”
But the boy wanted to see all that there was to see, and stood
upright, facing the quarter from which the storm was coming.
Imperceptibly the wind seemed to grow hotter and still more hot, and
the fine particles of sand tingled against the lad’s face. The sky
slowly turned gray with a tint of orange-color, but as yet the breeze
was not strong. A moaning sound was in the air, very faint, like the
whine of the sea in a shell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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