volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Sand Storm in the Desert. 197
well and drunk of its waters. The stone lining at its
mouth has in it many deep grooves that have been
made by the ropes by which the water-skins are drawn
up from its depths. The water was very bitter, but
drinkable, and it was far more palatable than that of
Sukhnah. The day was very hot and the hours seemed
endless ; there was nowhere to go, nothing to see, and
nothing to do except chase the shadow made by a heap
of bales. The sim went down among a mass of angrylooking
clouds, and in the evening puffs of hot wind
blew across the desert from time to time. It seemed
to me that a storm of some kind was coming, and I
suggested to Muhammad that we should stay with the
caravan folk for the night ; but he did not approve of
this idea, and said that if a great storm came we might
be held up there for a week. About 10 p.m. the night
was beautiful and the sky was filled with great stars,
and a little before midnight we set out for Der az-Zur.
About 3 a.m. the air behind us seemed to be filled
with heavy, moaning sounds, which came nearer and
nearer, and at the same time the stars disappeared
entirely as if a thick curtain had been drawn across the
heavens, and the darkness could almost be felt. A few
minutes later we heard the roar of a great storm of wind
behind, and we had hardly got the camels down on their
knees before it rushed upon us. The wind was hot and
stifling and was heavily charged with sand and dust,
which made breathing, except through a handkerchief,
a torture ; all the animals, except the camels, were
much distressed. The hab4b,'^ or hurricane, passed, and
in half an hour or so there was a great calm ; we picked
ourselves up out of the heaps of sand and dust which
had half buried the beasts and ourselves, and found
that we were none the worse. The air was filled with a
fine dust, and when the day came this surrounded us
like a thick white fog, and we could not see anything
more than a few yards away ; and worst of all the track
had disappeared. Muhammad thought he could find
* This word is probably akin to the Assyrian a-bu-bu yf 'i;^>- 'i^*-