Desert wind

“ For a long summer day they continued onward without halting; a burning sky above their heads, a parched desert beneath their feet, with just wind enough to raise the light sand from the knolls, and envelop them in stifling clouds. ”

“ It is not like the sound of the wind in a forest of pines, or on the shore where it mingles with the moaning of the sea — for there is life in the forest and in the sea, life in the swinging boughs and the dashing waves — but in the wind of the desert there is a hollow sound, for it comes over a world all silent and still, as over a world of the dead, and seems to be wailing like a lost spirit over innumerable graves. ”

“ One might sleep, for the lapping of the wind wears one to the point of exhaustion very soon, but there is dread, in open sand stretches sometimes justified, of being over blown by the drift. It is hot, dry, fretful work, but by going along the ground with the wind behind, one may come upon strange things in its tumultuous privacy. I like these truces of wind and heat that the desert makes, otherwise I do not know how I should come by so many acquaintances with furtive folk. ”

“ After one of those terrible wind storms, the only really incommoding desert weather, it is possible to find great spaces all rippled and lined in water-markings like a sea that has suddenly undergone a magic transformation into sand. ”

“ A strong puff of wind roars over the desert, and the sand rises in the air and looks like a great column of light colored smoke. Where the brush stand in thick clumps the sand lodges; and the brush sprouting out every year, the drift grows to a large mound. ”

“ When day broke, though as yet no rain was falling, a storm was already gathering itself for the onslaught. Fine dust filled the air, and the wind was racing up the valley with the swiftness of a prairie fire, where, on the alkali flats, great breakers of white dust rose from the sea of dry storm that ran ahead of the rain. Dead branches of greasewood, tumble-weeds light as sea-spume on the waves of the wind, rabbit-brush wrenched from the roots—these (the drift-wood of desert seas) , were swept on and away! ”

“ There is no luxury of turf or anything garden-like in these precincts of earth and running waters and trees. There is no effeminacy in the palm. Severity is the artistic trait of everything in the desert. The long lines of the landscape here are rigid, solemn, sombre; the naked rock of the mountain ranges is stern, worn to the bone by wind and rain and sand; except for the diaphanous and veiling effects of atmosphere and heat, and the cloud and mist conditions that I have mentioned earlier, an austere sublimity governs the horizons and vistas all around. ”

“ For the same wind, which, in the desert, becomes the simoom, raises its wings as herald of the spring. It rages through the fissures in the ground, sweeps out more dust, whirls it aloft in thick masses, and builds it into wall-like clouds, which it drives roaring and howling through the land, and forces through the latticed windows of the comfortable town-houses as well as through the low doorways of the native huts, adding a new plague to the existing torments. ”

“ In the pathless desert, high mounds of sand, shifting with every change of wind, surround the traveler on every side, and conceal from his view all other objects. There the wind is of a surprising rapidity ”

“ When the violent whirlwinds which prevail in the desert, terminate in gusts of wind, they usually expand over several square miles of surface, raging with irresistible force, and bearing upward an immense body of sand, which descends as the current of air that gave it action dies away, thus creating the extraordinary appearance in question. ”

“ It was a curious and happy coincidence that onr arrival upon the limits of the desert should have been celebrated by the first shower of rain: we no longer travelled upon sand and stones, but we stood upon a fertile loam, rendered soapy and adhesive by the recent shower. The country was utterly barren at that season, as the extreme heat of the sun and simoom destroys all vegetation so thoroughly that it becomes as crisp as glass; the dried grass breaks in the wind, and is carried away in dust, leaving the earth so utterly naked and bare that it is rendered a complete desert. ”

“ The wind continued to blow with violence for several days, though we had no more rain nor snow. It is easy to see how the desert has been torn to its rough harshness. That steady-blowing wind alone could wear the mountains to their jagged outlines, crumbling the softer rock down to fill the valleys. It picks up the sand and uses it to grind the mountains smooth. It piles it against the cliffs to make new foothills and hollows it out to make new canyons. It drives the rain against the mountains to rush down, rolling [Pg 210] rocks along the gorges and digging the deep trenches across the mesas. ”

“ Let no one infer from what has been said here of songs and screams that the desert is a noisy place. It is, on the contrary, distinctively the silent land. One may ride all day and yet hear nothing but the beating of the horse's feet and the brushing of his own feet against the bushes. Even the fierce wind does not whistle or even sigh through the brush. In this land the birds, save only the water fowl, are as a whole silent or low-voiced. ”

“ Between this range and the coast, instead of marshes and a jungle, there is a desert—a rainless country, upon which the rays of the sun play with sufficient force not only to counteract the trade-wind power and produce a calm, but to turn the scale, and draw the air back from the sea, and so cause the sea breeze to blow regularly. ”

“ A snow wind blows keenly. My fingers are nearly numb, and I am generally stiff and aching, but so much better that discomforts are only an amusement. Snow is said to be impending. 53 I have lunched frugally on sheep's milk and dates, and feel everything but my present surroundings to be very far off, and as if I had lived the desert life, and had heard the chimes of the great caravans, and had seen the wild desert riders, and the sun sinking below the level line of the desert horizon, for two months instead of two days. ”

“ The wind so filled the air with sand, that we could hardly see, or get on groping our way, and we were obliged to hold on our camels, for fear of being blown off. Our poor slaves shrunk back aghast from the tempest, whilst the sea now and then broke open upon them through the sand groups, showing, to their amazement, its most tempestuous aspect. ”

“ The dust raised and dispersed throughout the atmosphere by the desert wind, at times in the form of the simoom, is held for weeks and months in suspension, always imparting to the heavens a slightly leaden effect. ”

“ The effect of these desert whirlwinds is most curious, as their force is sufficient to raise dense columns of sand and dust several thousand feet high; these are not the evanescent creations of a changing wind, but they frequently exist for many hours, and travel forward, or more usually in circles, resembling in the distance solid pillars of sand. ”

“ There, about a dozen times during the day, the wind drives over the sky the swollen clouds, which water the earth copiously, after which the sun shines brightly, as if freshly bathed, and floods with a golden luster the rocks, the river, the trees, and the entire jungle. ”

“ Some of their material is wind-blown and on the walls of the valleys are alternating belts of wind-blown and water-laid strata from one hundred to four hundred feet thick as if in past ages long dry and long wet periods had succeeded each other. The wind has blown sand and dust from the desert down into the valleys, but its chief work has been to drive the lighter desert waste up partly into the mountains and along their margins, partly so high as to carry it into the realm of the lofty terrestrial winds, whence it falls upon surfaces far distant from the fields of origin. ”

“ The vertical ascent of currents of air is one of the principal causes of the most important meteorological phenomena. Where a desert or a sandy surface devoid of vegetation is surrounded by a high mountain-chain, the sea-wind may be observed driving a dense cloud over the desert, without any precipitation of vapour taking place before it reaches the crest of the mountains. This phenomenon was formerly very unsatisfactorily referred to an attraction supposed to be exercised by the mountain-chain on the clouds. ”

“ The trade winds in two belts on the equatorial sides of the Horse Latitudes heat up as they move toward the Equator. These dry winds dissipate cloud cover, allowing more sunlight to heat the land. Most of the major deserts of the world lie in areas crossed by the trade winds. The world’s largest desert, the Sahara of North Africa, which has experienced temperatures as high as 57° C, is a trade wind desert. ”

“ The air over the heated sandy plain becomes rarefied and ascends, the air from the sea rushes in to supply the void so formed, and thus there sometimes arises a west wind, adverse to ships bound to the American coast, which are made in this manner to feel the vicinity of the heat-radiating desert without even seeing the continent to which it belongs. ”

“ What we saw was frightful!”
“It often happens, Dick; these trips across the desert are far more perilous than those across the ocean. The desert has all the dangers of the sea, including the risk of being swallowed up, and added thereto are unendurable fatigues and privations.”
“I think the wind shows some symptoms of moderating; the sand-dust is less dense; the undulations of the surface are diminishing, and the sky is growing clearer.” ”

“ When the wind sets in from the north-east, it produces a wonderful change in the face of the country. The grass soon becomes dry and withered; the rivers subside very rapidly, and many of the trees shed their leaves. About this period is commonly felt the harmattan, a dry and parching wind, blowing from the north-east, and accompanied by a thick smoky haze; through which the sun appears of a dull red colour. This wind, in passing over the great desert of Sahara, acquires a very strong attraction for humidity, and parches up every thing exposed to its current. ”

“ The heat was sometimes intense, but at intervals a refreshing wind would blow, the air being as fickle as the rain; and now and then we would see a slender column of dust, a thousand or two feet high, marching across the desert, apparently not more than two feet in diameter, and wavering like the threads of moisture that tried in vain to reach the earth as rain. Of life there was not much to be seen in our desert route. In the first day we encountered no habitation except the ranch-house mentioned, and saw no human being ”

“ These summit plains of the continent are a region of continual high wind and constant sand-storm. Nowhere else in the arid region of the southwest is wind-scour in active operation so advantageously viewed. Nowhere else in this country are deflative effects and desert-leveling so well displayed. Nowhere else in all the world is general lowering of an elevated country by the winds so strikingly presented. ”

“ Long, slender cloud filaments project eastward over the margin of the desert. They are traveling rapidly but they never advance far over the hot wastes, for their eastern margins are constantly undergoing evaporation. At times the top of the cloud bank rises well above the crest of the Coast Range, and it seems to the man from the temperate zone as if a great thunderstorm were rising in the west. But for all their menace of wind and rain the clouds never get beyond the desert outposts. ”

“ But the sand-heaped floor suggests that the agent of erosion was the wind.
Cloud-bursts.
Canyon streams.
Yes; there is some water on the deserts, some (33) rainfall each year. Even Sahara gets its occasional showers, and the Colorado and the Mojave show many traces of the cloud-burst. The dark thunder-clouds that occasionally gather over the desert seem at times to reserve all their stores of rain for one place. The fall is usually short-lived but violent; and its greatest force is always on the mountains. ”

“ The touch of your hand is like the first breeze after the scorching heat of the day, and yet must I await your word before the love that consumes me may throw aside its coverings to stand in the perfumed freshness of the wind which maketh the delight of the desert dawn. ”

“ How cool and crystalline the air! In a few hours the great plain will be almost like a fiery furnace under the rays of the summer sun, but now it is chilly. And in a few hours there will be rings and bands and scarves of heat set wavering across the waste upon the opalescent wings of the mirage; but now the air is so clear that one can see the breaks in the rocky face of the mountain range, though it is fully twenty miles away. It may be further. Who of the desert has not spent his day riding at a mountain and never even reaching its base? This is a land of illusions and thin air. ”

“ I have seen the ocean when it was turned up from the bottom by tempest, and noon was like night with the conflict of the billows and the storm that tore and scattered them in mist and foam across the sky. I have seen the desert rise around me, and calmly, in the midst of thousands uttering cries of horror and paralyzed by fear, have contemplated the sandy pillars coming like the advance of some gigantic city of conflagration flying across the wilderness, every column glowing with intense fire and every blast with death; the sky vaulted with gloom, the earth a furnace. ”