hese naked ridges, where no
vegetation finds nourishment in the inorganic heap. I drag myself
wearily along, sinking deeply at every step. I climb sand-hills of
strange and fantastic shapes, cones, and domes, and roof-like ridges,
where the sportive wind seems to have played with the plastic mass, as
children with potter's clay. I encounter huge basins like the craters
of volcanoes, formed by the circling swirl; deep chasms and valleys,
whose sides are walls of sand, steep, often vertical, and not
unfrequently impending with comb-like escarpments.

All these features may be changed in a single night, by the magical
breath of the "norther". The hill to-day may become the valley
to-morrow, and the elevated ridge have given place to the sunken chasm.

Upon the summits of these sand-heights I am fanned by the cool breeze
from the Gulf. I descend into the sheltered gorges, and am burned by a
tropic sun, whose beams, reflected from a thousand crystals, torture my
eyes and brain. In these parts the traveller is often the victim of the
_coup-de-soleil_.

Yonder comes the "_norte_" Along the northern horizon the sky suddenly
changes from light blue to a dark lead colour. Sometimes rumbling
thunder with arrowy lightning portends the change; but if neither seen
nor heard, it is soon felt. The hot atmosphere, that, but a moment
before, encased me in its glowing embrace, is suddenly pierced by a
chill breeze, that causes my skin to creep and my frame to shiver. In
its icy breath there is fever--there is death; for it carries on its
wings the dreaded "vomito". The breeze becomes a strong wind--a
tempest. The sand is lifted upwards, and floats through the air in dun
clouds, here settling down, and there rising up again. I dare not face
it, any more than I would the blast of the simoom. I should be blinded
if I did, or blistered by the "scud" of the angular atoms. The
"norther" continues for hours, sometimes for days. It departs as
suddenly as it came, carrying its baneful influence to lands farther
south.

It is past, and the sand-hills have assumed a different shape. The
ridges trend differently. Some have disappeared, and valleys yawn open
where they stood!

Such are the shores of Anahuac--the shores of the Mexican Sea. Without
commerce--almost harbourless--a waste of sand; but a waste of striking
appearance and picturesque beauty.

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