April 3d. This forenoon a child, which had been some time sickly, died in
the next tent; and the mother and relations immediately began the death
howl. They were joined by a number of female visitors, who came on
purpose to assist at this melancholy concert. I had no opportunity of
seeing the burial, which is generally performed secretly in the dusk of
the evening, and frequently at only a few yards distance from the tent.
Over the grave, they plant one particular shrub; and no stranger is
allowed to pluck a leaf, or even to touch it; so great a veneration have
they for the dead.

April 7th. About four o'clock in the afternoon, a whirlwind passed
through the camp with such violence that it overturned three tents, and
blew down one side of my hut. These whirlwinds come from the Great
Desert, and at this season of the year are so common, that I have seen
five or six of them at one time. They carry up quantities of sand to an
amazing height, which resemble, at a distance, so many moving pillars of
smoke.

The scorching heat of the sun, upon a dry and sandy country, makes the
air insufferably hot. Ali having robbed me of my thermometer, I had no
means of forming a comparative judgment; but in the middle of the day,
when the beams of the vertical sun are seconded by the scorching wind
from the Desert, the ground is frequently heated to such a degree, as not
to be borne by the naked foot; even the Negro slaves will not run from
one tent to another without their sandals. At this time of the day, the
Moors lie stretched at length in their tents, either asleep, or unwilling
to move; and I have often felt the wind so hot, that I could not hold my
hand in the current of air, which came through the crevices of my hut,
without feeling sensible pain.