, and muscular; they appear to
enjoy the climate, and are as active, as healthy, and as long-lived as
any tribe of their nation. But if man by long residence becomes
thoroughly inured to the intense heat of these regions, it is otherwise
with the animal creation. Camels sicken, and birds are so distressed by
the high temperature that they sit in the date-trees about Baghdad, with
their mouths open, panting for fresh air.

The evils proceeding from a burning temperature are augmented in places
under the influence of winds, which, arising suddenly, fill the air with
an impalpable sand, sometimes circling about a point, sometimes driving
with furious force across a wide extent of country. The heated
particles, by their contact with the atmosphere, increase its fervid
glow, and, penetrating by the nose and mouth, dry up the moisture of the
tongue, parch the throat, and irritate or even choke the lungs. Earth
and sky are alike concealed by the dusty storm, through which no object
can be distinguished that is removed many yards; a lurid gleam surrounds
the traveller, and seems to accompany him as he moves: every landmark is
hid from view; and to the danger of suffocation is added that of becoming
bewildered and losing all knowledge of the road. Such are the perils
encountered in the present condition of the country. It may be doubted,
however, if in the times with which we are here concerned the evils just
described had an existence. The sands of Chaldaea, which are still
progressive and advancing, seem to have reached it from the Arabian
Desert, to which they properly belong: year by year the drifts gain upon
the alluvium, and threaten to spread over the whole country. If we may
calculate the earlier by the present rate of progress, we must conclude
that anciently these shifting sands had at any rate not crossed the
Euphrates.

If the heat of summer be thus fierce and trying, the cold of winter must
be pronounced to be very moderate. Frost, indeed, is not unknown in the
country: but the frosts are only slight. Keen winds blow from the north,
and in the morning the ground is often whitened by the congelation of the
dew; the Arabs, impatient of a low temperature, droop and flag; but there
is at no time any severity of cold; ice rarely forms in the marshes; snow
is unknown; and the thermometer, even on the grass, does not often sink
below 30 deg. The Persian kings passed their winter in Babylon, on
account of the mi