Accidents > Awful phenomena of nature -- snow storms, third of March and twenty-third April, 1827

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.lie !ee of oiir beasts, who were themselves so
i leriified as to need fastening by the knees, and
i ittered in their wailings but a melancholy
liymphony.
[ I know not whether it was the novelty of the
i ituation that gave it additional horrors, or
i Ivhether the liabit of magnifying evils to which
ve are unaccustomed, had increased its effect;
nut certain it is, that fifty gales of wind at sea
i ppeared to me to be more easy encountered
( ban one amongst those sands. It is impossi-
de to imagine desolation more complete; we
3 ou'd see neither eun, earth, nor sky ; the plain
1 t ten paces distance was absolutely impercep-
' ible; our beasts, as well as ourselves, were so
1overed as to render breathing difficult; they
. fid their faces in the ground, and we could only
incover our own for a moment, to behold this
, haos of mid-day darkness, and wait impatient-
i y for its abatement. Alexander’s journey to
he temple of Jupiter Ammon, and the destruc-
s'ion of the Persian armies of Cambyses in the
'^ybian desart, rose to recollection with new
impressions, made by the horror of the scene
i icfore me; while Addison’s admirable lines,
ilybich I also remembered with peculiar force on
ilhis occasion, seemed to possess as much truth
I is beauty.
" Lo! where o’er wide Numidian wastes
extend,
M Sudden the impetuous hurricanes descend,
i W hich through the air in circling eddies play,