rning 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, i