The wide wastes which lay before us appeared uniform and level as far as the eye could reach, but somewhat diversified by verdant patches of halfa (coarse grass of the desert), and by deceitful appearances of sheets of water, produced by the reflection of the light in the undulating vapours rising from the burning sand. In the distance, something like blue waves appeared: it was part of the great Atlas chain; but close at hand, to our right, was a long line of dunes. These eminences, smooth and sterile as marble domes, were apparently as solid too; but we knew that, if the desert wind should blow, they would be shaken into moving clouds of sand, overwhelming all before them.
Our column proceeded in silence. The soft sand yielded no echo to the tread. Every one appeared thoughtful and abstracted. This place has terrors even for the Arabs; they tell a thousand stories of the Pass of Sidi-Mohammed-el-Aoori: it was there, in times remote, that great armies were overpowered and slain by hostile bands, or destroyed by the scarcely less merciless elements; there many travellers have disappeared in the storm, or fallen under the hand of the murderer. It is the 'gate' of the desert; and the tutelar genii have placed the terrific dunes as a hieroglyphic warning to those who rashly approach. They seem to say, 'here begins the empire of Sterility and Death; enter if thou darest!' Doubtless the Arab tales had some influence on our minds, increasing the well-grounded fears inspired by the natural features of these arid wastes. Several of us mentally repeated that melancholy line from Dante--
Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate;[2]
and not a few pictured to themselves a body of troops visiting these sands half a century later, and finding the bones of Cavaignac's army scattered here and there over the plains.
Hitherto the atmosphere had always been perfectly clear, but now it was thick and cold, the horizon wearing that gray, heavy aspect which in Europe precedes a fall of snow. No one, however, ventured to pronounce this word; it appeared an occurrence so unlikely in the plain, at such a season and under such a latitude. What, then, was our surprise, on awaking on the morning of the 19th of April, to find the tents covered with a thick sheet of snow, and to see the vast expanse of the desert white to the verge of the horizon, like the frozen steppes of Siberia! The general ordered the camp to be raised immediately, for the bivouac afforded very scanty materials for fire, and he hoped there might be wood in the mountains if he could reach them. The snow continued to fall in large flakes; the troops, anxious and sorrowful, described a thousand circuits and made a thousand useless turnings, for our Arab guides were utterly at fault. During three or four months previous to the expedition, Cavaignac had been selecting and retaining as guides whatever Saharians he could find acquainted with that part of the desert he intended to traverse. The Arabs are gifted with remarkable dexterity in steering without compass, recognising a footstep imperceptible to the common eye, scenting the water at a distance, and finding their way by marks which would escape the most observant European. A Saharian once affirmed to Colonel Daumas: 'I am not considered remarkably sharp-sighted, but I can distinguish a goat from a sheep at the distance of a day's journey; and I know some who smell the smoke of a pipe, or of broiled meat, at thirty miles! We all know each other by the track of our feet in the sand, for no one tribe walks like another, nor does a wife leave the same footprint as an unmarried woman. If a hare has passed, we know by its footprint whether it is male or female, and, in the latter case, whether it is with young. If we see the stone of a date, we know the particular tree that produced it.'
Our conductors, though not pretending to all this sagacity, were nevertheless far in advance of some of us who proudly called ourselves 'old Africans,' and considered ourselves wonderfully expert in tracking the desert paths. But now the landmarks on which they depended had disappeared beneath the snow; and the atmosphere was so surcharged with it, that the mountain summits could no longer be descried. At length the guides abandoned the hopeless effort, and declared that they had entirely lost the way, and knew not in what direction to proceed. At this juncture, Cavaignac, remembering that the mountains had appeared due south on the preceding evening, seized his compass, and boldly ordered the troops in that direction. It was the only hope; but the march became so fatiguing, and the natives gave so little encouragement to the expectation of finding the mountains wooded, that a halt was ordered, and a bivouac on the snowy plain.
Many were the miseries that attended this encampment. The rattling of arms was heard on every side, for the soldiers were shivering to such a degree that they could not hold their guns steadily. What would they not now have given for some of the wood they had so wantonly destroyed in the forests of the Tell! But the bivouac was not even supplied with chiah--one of the commonest plants in Sahara, having a ligneous root, which had hitherto served us for fuel when everything else failed. Nothing was to be found but halfa, green, and steeped in snow; and the most skilful kindlers succeeded only in amusing themselves for a time with poor, little fires, that emitted more smoke than flame. The men, of course, could not make their soup; but the general ordered them rations of biscuit and coffee. For my own part, not being able to make a fire of wet halfa, I was looking disconsolately at a bit of biscuit, and a little morsel of cheese, which was to compose my dinner, when Lieutenant N---- sent word that his fire-makers had been more successful, and that they offered me a corner. In a few minutes, I sat down to two boiled eggs, which appeared delicious. Meanwhile, the night drew on. The soldier's bed out-of-doors is a sheepskin laid on the bare ground, under a tent so small that he cannot stand upright in it. Now, as the earth was very damp, those who did not take the precaution of choosing a little mound, and removing a portion of the wet soil, soon found themselves literally in the mud, and were obliged to get up, and walk about all night.
The snow continued to fall thick and fast, the thermometer marking 7 degrees below the freezing-point during the night. Some days before, it had been 125 degrees Fahrenheit in the sun; so that we were doomed, as in the Purgatory of Dante--
A sofferir tormenti caldi e geli;
from which, by the way, Milton has obviously borrowed his idea of infernal torment:
---- And feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infixed, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.
At the sound of the morning watch-gun, the camp presented a most distressing spectacle. The Arabs and negroes of the convoy were lying motionless in the open air, rolled in their burnooses. Many of these poor creatures were but lightly clad, and had the lower limbs entirely naked. They were so benumbed and stupified with cold, that they refused to rise and load the camels; they begged to be allowed to lie still and die in peace. The cattle also were in a sad condition, not only from cold, but hunger; for the snow-covered ground afforded them no pasture. As part of the provisions had been damaged, it was now asked in dismay, what would become of the army if the beasts should perish? The recollection of the disaster at Boo-Taleb, where the column of General Levasseur left so many men in the snow, occurred to the stoutest hearts. But even darker shades mingled in the prospects of our troops; for 'General Levasseur,' said they, 'was only thirty miles from a post occupied by French troops, and the neighbouring tribes raised and reanimated those whom they found alive, though benumbed on the plain; but we, in the midst of the desert, far from any human dwelling, what will become of us? Hunger, thirst, and the enemy, will soon finish the remains of our unfortunate army.'
But the officers are on foot, setting the example of vigorous exertion, and striving to comfort and encourage the men; while the calm and quiet prudence of the general inspires every one with confidence in endeavouring to obey his orders, as the only hope of deliverance. We begin our march: the snow is now falling only at intervals; it lies two feet deep in the hollow plains, and above a foot on the level and rising ground.
Some of the men, however, remained as if nailed to the soil--not only their limbs benumbed, but their mental energies so paralysed as to be incapable of acting on the physical; the mind inaccessible to moral incentives, and the body insensible to the influence of outward stimulants. By and by they found energy to beg that they might be hoisted on the arm-chairs; but this was peremptorily refused. Since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, and the recent work of Dr Shrimpton on the disaster at Boo-Taleb, every one knows the consequence of indulging this deceitful stupor.