2.3E - Dunes

"At a distance, the dunes had the beauty of patterns.  Close, they had the beauty of texture:  there were edges to these dunes so clean and sharp that you wanted to run your finger along them and the very finest sand was skimmed lightly off the edges like spindrift by the gentlest of winds.  Yet all this beauty was deceptive.  It was difficult to hold course when the dunes swerved artfully against the line of march.  Each dune had a hard side, packed tight by ages of prevailing winds, and it was important to keep to this, where even a loaded camel would leave no more than a footprint.  Let even an unburdened man move onto the soft side of the dune, and he would sink through the surface, sometimes up to his knees...Descending the soft side of a dune meant not only a dragging weight upon the feet and the growing effort to lift one's limbs out of the morass; it also meant the agony of strides downhill to get bare legs free of the scalding surface sand."

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