I was on the borders of Guinea towards the desarts that bound it on the North. I contemplated the immense wilds, the very idea of which shocks the firmest mind. On a sudden I was seized with an ardent desire to penetrate into those desarts and see how far nature denies herself to mankind. Perhaps (said I) among these scorching plains there is some fertile spot unknown to the rest of the world. Perhaps I shall find men who have neither been polished nor corrupted by commerce with others. 5In vain did I represent to myself the dangers and even the almost certain death to which such an enterprize would expose me; I could not drive the thought out of my head. One winter’s day (for it was in the dog-days) the wind being southwest, the sky clear, and the air temperate, furnished with something to asswage hunger and thirst, with a glass-mask to save my eyes from the clouds of sands, and with a compass to guide my steps, I sate out from the borders of Guinea and advanced into the desart.
I went on two whole days without seeing any thing extraordinary: in the beginning of the third I perceived all around me nothing but a few almost sapless shrubs and some tufts of rushes, most of which were dried up by the heat 6of the sun. These are nature’s last productions in those barren regions; here her teeming virtue stops, nor can life be farther extended in those frightful solitudes.
I had scarce continued my course two hours over a sandy soil, where the eye meets no object but scattered rocks, when the wind growing higher, began to put in motion the surface of the sands. At first, the sand only played about the foot of the rocks and formed small waves which lightly skimmed over the plain. Such are the little billows which are seen to rise and gently roll on the surface of the water when the sea begins to grow rough at the approach of a storm. The sandy waves soon became larger, dashed and broke one another; and I was exposed to the most dreadful of hurricanes.
7Frequent whirlwinds arose, which collecting the sands carried them in rapid gyrations to a vast height with horrible whistlings. Instantly after, the sands, left to themselves, fell down in strait lines and formed mountains. Clouds of dust were mixed with the clouds of the atmosphere, and heaven and earth seemed jumbled together. Sometimes the thickness of the whirlwinds deprived me entirely of the light of the sun: and sometimes red transparent sands shone from afar: the air appeared in a blaze, and the sky seemed dissolved into sparks of fire.
Mean time, now tossed into the air by a sudden gust of wind, and now hurled down by my own weight, I found myself one while in clouds of sand, and another while in a gulf. Every moment 8I should have been either buried or dashed in pieces, had not a benevolent Being (who will appear presently) protected me from all harm.
The terrible hurricane ceased with the day: the night was calm, and weariness overcoming my fears, I fell asleep.