WHEREIN YUSUF ENCOUNTERS A SAND-STORM IN THE DESERT, AND HAS SOMEWHAT OF
AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE LITTLE DERVISH.

"A column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread."

--_Longfellow._


With but few events worthy of notice the journey to Mecca was concluded.
After a short halt at Medina, the caravan set out by one of the three
roads which then led from Medina to Mecca.[4]

The way led through a country whose aspect had every indication of
volcanic agency in the remote ages of the earth's history. Bleak
plains--through whose barren soil outcrops of blackened scoriæ, or sharp
edges of black and brittle hornblende, appeared at every turn--were
interspersed with wadies, bounded by ridges of basalt and green-stone,
rising from one hundred to two hundred feet high, and covered with a
scanty vegetation of thorny acacias and clumps of camel-grass. Here and
there a rolling hill was cut by a deep gorge, showing where, after rain,
a mighty torrent must foam its way; and, more rarely still, a stagnant
pool of saltish or brackish water was marked out by a cluster of daum
palms.

On all sides jackals howled dismally during the night; and above,
during the day, an occasional vulture wheeled, fresh from the carcass of
some poor mule dead by the wayside.

Such was the appearance of the land through which the caravan wound its