From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

Resting comfortably, though rudely wakened by the loud grumbling of the baggage-camels, the experienced travellers allow the caravan to go on ahead while they comfort body and soul with coffee and tobacco. Thereafter they mount the dromedaries and speed along as quickly as these trotters will go. Not a word is exchanged, the only sounds are the crunching of the sand under the elastic hoofs, the loud breathing, and hollow, deep grunting of the camels. In a short time the baggage-train is overtaken, and we shoot on ahead. A gazelle browses near our course and raises hopes of welcome booty. With spirited movements the graceful creature—image of the desert poet’s fancy—skips and dances before its pursuers; the gasping, sharply-spurred camels rush on with gigantic strides. The gazelle seems careless and allows near approach; the riders act as if they would pass it, they rein in their beasts and ride more moderately. But one slips from the saddle to the ground, stops his beast for a moment, and from under cover of its body fires a deadly shot. In a trice the leader has sprung from his saddle to make sure of the fallen game; triumphantly he drags it along, fastens it dexterously to his saddle, and on goes our cavalcade.

Towards noon a halt is called. If there is a hollow near, it will probably contain an umbrella-like mimosa, whose thin foliage will afford some slight shade; but if the sandy plain stretches unbroken on all sides, all that can be done is to fix four lances in the sand and stretch a blanket over them. Though the sand on which one must lie is glowing, and the air one breathes is oppressive, languor and weariness overpower even the natives, how much more the Northerner. One seeks rest, but it comes not, and refreshment, but one cannot enjoy it. Blinded by the overflowing light and the tremulous atmosphere, we shut our eyes; but, tormented by scorching heat, and tortured by feverish thirst, we toss about sleepless. The hours go by on leaden feet.

The baggage-train winds slowly past and disappears in a vapourous sea on whose heaving waves the camels seem to float. Still one lingers, and continues to suffer the same agonies. The sun has long since passed the zenith, but his glowing beams are as fierce as ever. It is not till late in the afternoon that a fresh start is made. And again there is a rapid ride, whose swiftness seems almost to create a cooling breeze of air. The baggage-camels come in sight again, and are soon overtaken. The drivers stride behind them, singing; one leads the song, and the rest join in at the end of each verse in regular refrain.

When one knows the toilsome labour of the camel-driver in the desert, one wonders indeed to hear him singing. Before daybreak he loaded his camel, after he had shared with it a few handfuls of soft-boiled dhurra grains—the sole food of both; all through the long day he strides behind his beast, without a bite to eat, with at most an occasional mouthful of ill-smelling water; the sun scorches his head, the glowing sand burns his feet, the hot air parches his sweating body; for him there is no time to pause or rest; he may perhaps have had to change the loads of some of the beasts, or to catch one or other which had bolted; and yet he sings! It is the approach of night which inspires him.

When the sun goes to rest, the limbs of these wizened children of the desert seem to become supple again; in this, as in all else, they are like their mother. Like her they are parched at noon, like her they revive at night. As the sun declines, their poetic gifts weave golden dreams even in waking hours. The singer praises the well-springs rich in water, the groups of palms around them, and the dark tents in the shade; he greets a brown maiden in one of the tents, who hails him with welcome; he extols her beauty, likens her eyes to those of the gazelle, and her mouth to a rose, whose fragrance is as her words, and these as pearls in his ear; for her sake he rejects the sultan’s eldest daughter, and longs for the hours when fate shall permit him to share her tent. But his comrades admonish him to seek after higher joys, and raise his thoughts to the Prophet, “who satisfies all longing”.

Such is the song which falls on the Northerner’s ears, and the songs of home rise to his lips, and when the last rosy flush of the setting sun fades away, when night stretches her robe of witchery over the desert, then it seems to him as if the hardest had been easy, as though he had suffered no thirst in the heat, nor discomfort by the way. Cheerfully he leaps from the saddle, and while the drivers unload and tether the camels, he heaps and smooths the sand for his bed, spreads his carpet and coverlet, and gives himself over with delight to the rest he had longed for.

The small camp-fire illumines the plain only for a few paces. Around it the dark, half-naked sons of the desert move about busily; the flame casts a weird light on them, and in the half-darkness they look like shadows. The bales and boxes, saddles and utensils assume strange shapes; and the camels, lying in a wide circle outside the baggage, become ghostly figures when their eyes gleam with the reflection of the firelight. It becomes quieter and quieter in the camp. One driver after another leaves the camels, with whom he has shared his frugal supper, wraps himself in his long body-cloth, sinks to the ground, and becomes one with the sand. The fire flares up for the last time, loses its glow, and goes out. It is night in the camp.

He who would describe a night in the desert should be, by the grace of God, a poet. For how can its beauty be described, even by one who has watched, revelled, and dreamed through it all? After the heat of the day it comes as the gentle, compensating, reconciling bestower of unspeakable comfort and inspiration, bringing peace and joy, for which a man longs as for his beloved who atones to him for his long waiting. “Leïla”, the starry night of the desert, Leïla is with justice the Arab’s image of all that is fair and joyous. Leïla he calls his daughter; with the words, “my starry night”, he embraces his beloved; “Leïla, O Leïla!” is the musical refrain of his songs. And what a night it is, which here in the desert, after all the burden and discomfort of the day, soothes every sense and feeling! In undreamt-of purity and brightness the stars shine forth from the dark dome of heaven: the light of the nearest is strong enough to cast slight shadows on the pale ground. With full chest one breathes the pure, fresh, cooling, and invigorating air; with delight one gazes from star to star, and as their light seems to come nearer and nearer, the soul breaks through the fetters which bind it to the dust and holds converse with other worlds. Not a sound, not a rustle, not even the chirping of a grasshopper interrupts the current of thought and feeling. The majesty, the sublimity of the desert is now for the first time appreciated; its unutterable peace steals into the traveller’s heart. But what proud self-consciousness also fills his breast: here, in the midst of the infinite solitude, so alone, apart from all human society and help, reliant on himself only, his confidence, courage, and hope are strengthened. Dream-pictures full of infinite charm pass before his wakeful eyes, and merge in ever fresh and fascinating combinations, and as the stars begin to twinkle and tremble, his thoughts become dreams, and his eyes close in sleep.

After the refreshment which the desert night brings both to body and soul, the discomforts of the next day seem lighter, however much effort it may require to drink the water, which becomes more vile every hour. Perfect rest, unclouded comfort is only to be had at one of the desert wells. Always menaced by dearth of the most essential necessaries of life, every desert journey is a ceaseless anxiety, a restless hastening on; it is therefore entirely devoid of that ease and comfort with which one would prefer to travel. One day passes like another; each night, in favourable seasons at least, is like that which I have described. But in the oasis, the day becomes a holiday, the evening is a joyous festival, and the night brings perfect rest.

The essential condition for the formation of an oasis is a basin-like or valley-like depression. Without a gushing spring, without at least an artificial well, rich vegetation is impossible, and water is found in the desert only on the lofty mountains or in the deepest hollows. As the sea of sand is in so many respects the counterpart of the ocean, so its oases are counterparts of islands, but they do not rise above the surface, they are sunk beneath it. The water may either rise in a visible spring, or it may be found at a slight depth below the surface. Its abundance and its quality determine the character of the oasis. In the minority the water is pure and cool, but in most cases it is salt, ferruginous, or sulphurous, and on that account probably very healthful. But it is by no means always drinkable or conducive to fertility. Perhaps there is hardly one oasis which produces fresh, green sward. And it is only in very favourable places that the water is evident at all; in most cases it collects drop by drop in clefts of the rock or in shafts which have been dug for it; at times at least it has to be artificially forced. Even where the water wells up copiously it would soon lose itself in the sand, if it were not carefully collected and distributed. At the same time it always evokes a refreshing life, doubly welcome amid such sterility.