with a whirling motion, which, darkening the eye, renders it impossible for the guides to perceive the way, so that whole caravans have been buried beneath it. The camels alone give notice of its approach, by making a noise, and burying their mouth and nostrils in the sand, and whoever imitates them escapes destruction. Mr. Bruce thus describes this pestilential wind, which is called "The Simoom." "We had no sooner got into the plains, that we felt great symptoms of the simoom, and about a quarter before twelve, our prisoner first, and then Idris, called out The Simoom! the Simoom!' My curiosity made me look behind me; about due south, a little to the east, I saw the coloured haze as before. It seemed now to be rather less compressed, and to have with it a shade of blue: the edges of it were like a very thin smoke. We all fell on our faces, and the simoom passed with a gentle ruffling wind. It continued to blow thus till near three o'clock: so that we were all taken ill that night, and strength was hardly left us to load the camels and arrange the baggage." The army of Sennacherib was perhaps destroyed by such a pestilential wind. It is often instantaneously fatal, and the word 'angel" is expressly called in the original in Isaiah xxxvii. 7, a blast, or wind.-HARMER's Observations, vol. i., pp. 162-165; BRUCE'S Travels.

"We remained encamped at Bushire (writes Morier) until the 27th of March, during which time we experienced one of the discomforts of a tented life, in a gale of wind that blew from the southward and eastward, with such violence, that three of our largest tents were levelled with the ground. The wind brought with it such hot currents of air, that we thought it might be the precursor of the 'samoum;' (simoom) but, upon inquiry, we found that the autumn was generally the season for that wind. The 'sam' wind commits great ravages in this district, and is hurtful to vegetation. It blows at night, from about midnight to sunrise, and comes in a hot blast, and is afterwards succeeded by a

cold one. About six years ago there was a 'sam' during the summer months, which so totally burnt up all the corn, then near its maturity, that no animal would eat a blade of it, or touch any of its grain. The image of corn blasted before it be grown up, used by the sacred historian, was most probably taken from a cause similar to what has just been stated, and the allusion is also perhaps to the pestilential wind, when the prophet says (in the same chapter) I will send a blast upon him. In the Psalms, we read of the wind that passeth over the grass, and it is gone."-Second Journey through Persia, pp. 42, 43.

While travelling in the desert of Nubia, "We were at once surprised and terrified by a sight, surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast desert

we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did actually, more than once, reach us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me, at that distance, as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at south-east, leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think of flying. The swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full persuasion of this riveted me as if to the spot where I stood, and let the camels gain on me so much in my state of lameness, that it was with some difficulty I could overtake them."

Next day "the same moving pillars of sand presented themselves, only they seemed to be more in number and less in size. They began immediately after sunrise, like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun. His rays, shining through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire. Our people now became desperate the Greeks shrieked out, and said it was the day of judgment. I asked Idris if he had ever before seen such a sight; he said he had often seen them as terrible, though never worse; but what he feared most was that extreme redness in the air, which was a sure

presage of the coming of the simoom... At eleven o'clock, while we contemplated with 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 called out with a loud voice Fall upon your faces, for here is the simoom!' I saw from the south-east 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 upon my face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it was blown over. The purple haze was indeed passed, but the light air that still blew was of heat to threaten suffocation...] ...It still continued to blow, so as to exhaust us entirely, though the blast was so weak as scarcely would have raised a leaf from the ground.”—BRUCE's Travels.

ILLUSTRATION OF PSALM 1xxxiii. 13.

"Whilst we were encamped at the village of Hassanabad," writes Mr. Morier, "a violent wind arose from the eastward. It prevailed from the morning to about two o'clock P.M., when it changed about to the westward. At the time of the change, whirlwinds were to be seen in different parts of the plain, sweeping along the country in different directions, in a manner that was quite frightful to behold. They carried away in their vortex sands, branches, and the stubble of the fields, and really appeared to make a communication between the earth and the clouds. The correctness of the imagery used by the prophet Isaiah, xvii. 13, when he alludes to this phenomenon, is very striking to the Eastern traveller; and when we read in the Psalms, 'Make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind;' this also is happily illustrated by the rotatory action of the whirlwind, which frequently impels a bit of stubble over a waste, just like a wheel set into rapid motion."-MORIER'S Second Journey through Persia, &c., p. 202.

WATERSPOUTS.

The following is an account of the first water-spout seen by the Spaniards on the coast of America :

:

"The sea ran in mountain-waves,,covered with foam. For a day and a night the heavens glowed like a furnace, with incessant flashes of lightning; while the loud claps