He could not move from the place, however, without increasing
it, and every step he took smashed a mummy. Once, in forcing his way
through a steeply inclined passage, about twenty feet in length, and no
wider than his body could be squeezed through, he was overwhelmed with
an avalanche of bones, legs, arms, and hands, rolling from above; and
every forward move brought his face in contact with the abhorred
features of some decayed Egyptian.[1]
[Footnote 1: Bayard Taylor.]
Behold Denham in the Desert of Dead Bones, where his sick comrades were
constantly disheartened by the sight of the skulls and skeletons of men
who had perished on those sands. During several days, they passed from
sixty to ninety skeletons a day; but the numbers that lay about the
wells at El Hammar were countless. Those of two women, whose perfect
and regular teeth bespoke them young, perhaps beautiful, were
particularly shocking. Their arms were still clasped around each
other's neck, in the attitude in which they had expired, although the
flesh had long since been consumed in the rays of the sun, and the
blackened bones alone were left.
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