The name is of Egyptian origin and signifies “fifty”—the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost on which the khamsin is said to be particularly frequent. As with its kin: sirocco and foehn, bora and mistral, the khamsin’s effect on the humours of man is violent and mysterious. Its intensity varies from a tepid breeze, importunate like an unwanted caress, to the scalding whiff from an open boiler. But it is not the surface effect of the moving air which counts; nor its heat; nor the thirst, the irking dryness in throat and nostrils. What matters is the khamsin’s nervous effect, and the things which it does to those functions of the body which are beyond voluntary control. There are no statistics on the increase of suicide, manslaughter and rape on khamsin days. Its influence on the nervous system cannot be expressed in measurable quantities. Measurable are only the physical changes in the atmosphere. It is known that the temperature close to the ground may jump upward during a khamsin by 35 degrees and pass 110 degrees in the shade.
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