nd prevails for days together--a wind whose
breath withers the herbage and is unspeakably depressing to man. Called
in the east the Sherghis, and in the west the Khamsin, this fiery
sirocco comes laden with fine particles of heated sand, which at once
raise the temperature and render the air unwholesome to breathe. In
Syria these winds occur commonly in the spring, from February to April;
but in Susiana and Babylonia the time for them is the height of summer.
They blow from various quarters, according to the position, with respect
to Arabia, occupied by the different provinces. In Palestine the worst
are from the east, the direction in which the desert is nearest; in
Lower Babylonia they are from the south; in Susiana from the west or the
north-west. During their continuance the air is darkened, a lurid glow
is cast over the earth, the animal world pines and droops, vegetation
languishes, and, if the traveller cannot obtain shelter, and the wind
continues, he may sink and die under its deleterious influence.

The climate of the entire tract included within the limits of the Empire
was probably much the same in ancient times as in our own days. In the
low alluvial plains indeed near the Persian Gulf it is probable that
vegetation was anciently more abundant, the date-palm being cultivated
much more extensively then than at present; and so far it might appear
reasonable to conclude that the climate of that region must have been
moister and cooler than it now is. But if we may judge by Strabo's
account of Susiana, where the climatic conditions were nearly the same
as in Babylonia, no important change can have taken place, for Strabo
not only calls the climate of Susiana "fiery and scorching," but says
that in Susa, during the height of summer, if a lizard or a snake
tried to cross the street about noon-day, he was baked to death before
accomplishing half the distance. Similarly on the west, though there is
reason to believe that Palestine is now much more denuded of timber than
it was formerly, and its climate should therefore be both warmer and
drier, yet it has been argued with great force from the identity of the
modern with the ancient vegetation, that in reality there can have
been no considerable change. If then there has been such permanency of
climate in the two regions where the greatest alteration seems to have
taken place in the circumstances whereby climate is usually affected,
it can scarcely be thought that el