was about twelve feet high
from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the air, and 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 plainly upon my
face. We all lay flat on the ground, as if dead, till Idris told us it
was blown over. The meteor or purple haze which I saw was indeed past,
but the light air that still blew was of a heat to threaten suffocation.
For my part, I found distinctly in my breast that I had imbibed a part
of it, nor was I free from an asthmatic sensation till I had been some
months in Italy, at the baths of Poretta, nearly two years afterwards.

This phenomenon of the simoom, unexpected by us, though foreseen by
Idris, caused us all to relapse into our former despondency. 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. Towards
evening it ceased; and a cooling breeze came from the north, blowing
five or six minutes at a time, and then falling calm. We reached Chiggre
that night, very much fatigued.

BRUCE'S TRAVELS.

[Note:_James Bruce_ (born 1730, died 1794), the African traveller; one
of the early explorers of the Nile.]

* * * * *

A SHIPWRECK ON THE ARABIAN COAST.

Another hour of struggle! It was past midnight, or thereabout, and the
storm, instead of abating, blew stronger and stronger. A passenger, one
of the three on the beam astern, felt too numb and wearied out to
retain his hold by the spar any longer; he left it, and swimming with a
desperate effort up to the boat, begged in God's name to be taken in.
Some were for granting his request, others for denying; at last two
sailors, moved with pity, laid hold of his arms where he clung to the
boat's side, and helped him in. We were now thirteen together, and the
boat rode lower down in the water and with more danger than ever: it was
literally a hand's breadth between life and death. Soon after another,
Ibraheem by name, and also a passenger, made a similar attempt to gain
admittance. To comply would have been sheer madness; but the poor wretch
clung to the gunwale, and struggled to clamber over, till the nearest
of the crew, after vainly entreating him to quit hold and return to the
beam, saying, "It is your only chance of life, you must keep to it,"
loosened his grasp by m