But it is not alone the sublime grandeur of the desert which raises the spirit of man to his Maker; its terrors also make him vividly feel the Almighty presence, for when the sense of his helplessness becomes overpoweringly acute, he then instinctively looks for protection above. As the conflicting air-currents of the ocean occasion water-spouts, the terror of the mariner; so also sandspouts or trombs arise in rotatory eddies from the midst of the desert, and assume the form of mighty columns, sometimes slowly moving along, at others advancing with menacing swiftness. As they rapidly scud with the wings of the whirlwind over the plain-- huge, yellow shafts with lofty heads horizontally bent backwards in the form of clouds, it requires but little stretch of fancy to enter into the Bedouin’s superstition, and, like the imaginative sons of the desert, suppose them to be the genii of the waste which cannot be caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the wind-eddy that raises them. As they advance, the pious Moslem stretches out his finger, exclaiming, ‘Avaunt, O thou ill-omened one!’ Every moment the dread columns change their station, their appearance, their form. Onward they move, with terrible rapidity; the sun tints them with the brilliancy of fire; the storm, whirling in and around them, cuts them into several branches, reunites them, now weakens and now again strengthens them; and when, the whirlwind having spent its force, they suddenly collapse, and relieve the traveller from the fear of immediate danger, he yet must not exult too soon, for generally these sandspouts are followed by the dreaded simoom. The temperature of the air becomes intolerably oppressive; it is sultry and enervating as before a thunder-storm. The hitherto crystal transparency of the sky is veiled with a hazy dimness, it is the sand of the desert whirling at a distance in the atmosphere, but as yet no wind is felt. The camels, however, are conscious of its approach. They become restless and anxious, and appear overcome by fatigue. And now a light hot wind arises from the south, or south-west, blowing in intermittent gusts like the laborious breathing of a feverish patient. Gradually the convulsions of the storm grow more violent and frequent; and although the sun is unable to pierce the thick dust-clouds, and the shadow of the traveller is scarcely visible on the ground, yet so suffocating is the heat that it seems to him as if the fiercest rays of the sun were scorching his brain. The fiery purple of the atmosphere gradually changes to a leaden blackness; the wind becomes constant; the camels, snorting and groaning, stretch out their necks flat upon the ground, and turn their backs to the raging sand-storm. The Arabs pile up the water-bags, so as to screen them from the wind and diminish the surface exposed to the dry air, and wrapping themselves up as closely as possible in their cloaks, seek protection behind chests or bales of merchandise.