Jenks's Portland Gazette

Miscellaneous.

The MOVING PILLARS of SAND in the DESERTS of NUBIA.

[From Bruce's Travels to discover the source of the Nile.]

AT Waadi el Halboub we were surprised and terrified by a sight surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from W. and to N. W. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with 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 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 S. E. 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 safest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full persuasion of this, rivetted 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. The same appearance of moving pillars of sand presented themselves to us the next day in form and disposition like those we had seen at Waadi el Halboub, only they seemed to be more in number, and less in size. They came several times in a direction close upon us; that is, I believe, within less than two miles. 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. Imael pronounced it to be hell, and the Tucorories, that the world was on fire. I asked Idris if he ever had before seen such a sight? He said he had often seen them as terrible, though never more; but what he feared most was that extreme redness in the air, which was a sure presage of the coming of the simoon.