ich
surrounded and filled the great temple of Ipsambul, first discovered by
Burckhardt, and afterwards partially uncovered by Belzoni and Beechey,
was so fine as to resemble a fluid when put in motion. Neither the
features of the colossal figures, nor the color of the stucco with which
some were covered, nor the paintings on the walls, had received any
injury from being enveloped for ages in this dry impalpable dust.[1025]

At some future period, perhaps when the pyramids shall have perished,
the action of the sea, or an earthquake, may lay open to the day some of
these buried temples. Or we may suppose the desert to remain
undisturbed, and changes in the surrounding sea and land to modify the
climate and the direction of the prevailing winds, so that these may
then waft away the Libyan sands as gradually as they once brought them
to those regions. Thus, many a town and temple of higher antiquity than
Thebes or Memphis may reappear in their original antiquity, and a part
of the gloom which overhangs the history of the earlier nations be
dispelled.

Whole caravans are said to have been overwhelmed by the Libyan sands;
and Burckhardt informs us that "after passing the Akaba near the head of
the Red Sea, the bones of dead camels are the only guides of the pilgrim
through the wastes of sand."--"We did not see," says Captain Lyon,
speaking of a plain near the Soudah mountains, in Northern Africa, "the
least appearance of vegetation; but observed many skeletons of animals,
which had died of fatigue on the desert, and occasionally the grave of
some human being. All these bodies were so dried by the heat of the sun,
that putrefaction appears not to have taken place after death. In
recently expired animals I could not perceive the slightest offensive
smell; and in those long dead, the skin with the hair on it remained
unbroken and perfect, although so brittle as to break with a slight
blow. The sand-winds never cause these carcases to change their places;
for, in a short time, a slight mound is formed round them, and they
become stationary."[1026]

_Towns overwhelmed by sand floods._--The burying of several towns and
villages in England, France, and Jutland, by blown sand, is on record;
thus, for example, near St. Pol de Leon, in Brittany, a whole village
was completely buried beneath drift sand, so that nothing was seen but
the spire of the church.[1027] In Jutland marine shells adhering to
sea-weed are sometimes blown by th