Page 41 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

24 t6r TO SUEZ* [cn.

rise to their base, connects them. Its height,
about four hundred feet, as well as the mate­
rial of which it is composed—a light-coloured
friable sandstone—is about the same as the
rest of the chain; but an inclined plane of
almost impalpable sand rises at an angle of
40° with the horizon, and is bounded by a
semicircle of rocks presenting broken, abrupt,

and pinnacled forms, and extending to the
base of this remarkable hill. Although their
shape and arrangement in some respects may
be said to resemble a whispering gallery, yet
I determined by experiment that their irre­
gular surface renders them but ill adapted for
the production of an echo. Seated on a rock
at the base of the sloping eminence, I directed
one of the Bedowins to ascend, and it was not
until he had reached some distance that I
perceived the sand in motion, rolling down

the hill to the depth of a foot. It did not
however descend in one continued stream,
but, as the Arab scrambled upwards, it spread
out laterally and upwards, until a consider­
able portion of the surface was in motion.
At their commencement the sounds might be
compared to the faint strains of an Eolian