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And now to go on with the legend it is believed by many, that deep in the as yet unexplored depths of the deserts of Egypt miles and miles over rolling sand-waves which once formed the bed of a vast ocean, there stands a great city whose roofs and towers are seemingly of brass, a city barricaded and built in by walls of brass and guarded by gates of brass.
This action gives rise to long lines of regular waves or swells extending for some distance down the stream. These are usually referred to as sand-waves. These waves increase in size in high water; and the monotonous thump, thump of the boat's bottom upon them is anything but pleasant, especially if one is trying to make fast time.
I walked across the dry portion, observing the sand-waves, all ranged in one direction, perpendicular to that of the prevailing wind, accurately representing the undulations of the ocean, as seen from a mast-head or high cliff. As the sand was finer or coarser, so did the surface resemble a gentle ripple, or an ocean-swell.
Now was his chance to test them out, and his hour of triumph if they worked. The test was a rigid one. The boat was to be turned upstream against an eight-mile current with big sand-waves, beginning about sixty feet from the shore, running in the middle of the river. If the engine ran, and the stern paddle-wheel turned, his reputation was saved.
The light of the southern stars began to glow with soft radiance. A gigantic emptiness, a rolling vacancy of sea and earth brine-waves to rear of the Legion, sand-waves ahead shrank the party to seeming insignificance. A soft, purple tapestry of night unrolled across the desert; the wind died, and the suffocating breath of overheated sands began to emanate from the baked earth.
The deep wash pinched in, as the other had done, before it gave out into the plain; and, then, as he whirled around a point, he glided out into the open. The foothills lay behind him and, straight athwart his way, stretched a sea of motionless sand-waves.
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