An inquiry about distances led to the discovery that this20
sheik had never heard of the division of time into hours.
About this part of my journey I saw the likeness of a
fresh-water lake. I saw, as it seemed, a broad sheet of
calm water stretching far and fair towards the south—stretching
deep into winding creeks and hemmed in by 25
jutting promontories, and shelving smooth off toward the
shallow side. On its bosom the reflected fire of the sun lay
playing and seeming to float as though upon deep, still
waters.
Though I knew of the cheat, it was not till the spongy 30
foot of my camel had almost trodden in the seeming lake
that I could undeceive my eyes, for the shore line was quite
true and natural. I soon saw the cause of the phantasm.
A sheet of water, heavily impregnated with salts, had
gathered together in a vast hollow between the sand hills,
and when dried up by evaporation had left a white saline
deposit; this exactly marked the space which the waters 5
had covered, and so traced out a good shore line. The
minute crystals of the salt, by their way of sparkling in
the sun, were made to seem like the dazzled face of a lake
that is calm and smooth.
The pace of the camel is irksome, and makes your 10
shoulders and loins ache from the peculiar way in which
you are obliged to suit yourself to the movements of the
beast; but one soon, of course, becomes inured to the work,
and after my first two days, this way of traveling became so
familiar to me that (poor sleeper as I am) I now and then15
slumbered for some moments together on the back of my
camel.
After the fifth day of my journey, I no longer traveled
over the shifting hills but came upon a dead level—a dead
level bed of sand, quite hard, and studded with small shining 20
pebbles.
The heat grew fierce; there was no valley, no hollow,
no hill, no mound, no shadow of hill nor of mound, by which
I could mark the way I was making. Hour by hour I
advanced, and saw no change. I was still the very center 25
of a round horizon. Hour by hour I advanced, and still
there was the same, and the same, and the same—the
same circle of flaming sky—the same circle of sand still
glaring with light and fire. Over all the heaven above,
over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that 30
could balk the fierce will of the sun. "He rejoiced as a
strong man to run a race; his going forth was from the end
of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there
was nothing hid from the heat thereof." From pole to
pole, and from the east to the west, he brandished his
fiery scepter as though he had usurped all heaven and
earth. As he bid the soft Persian in ancient times, so 5
now, and fiercely too, he bid me bow down and worship
him; so now in his pride he seemed to command me, and
say, "Thou shalt have none other gods but me." I was
all alone before him. There were these two pitted together,
and face to face—the mighty sun for one, and for 10
the other this poor, pale, solitary Self of mine.
But on the eighth day, and before I had yet turned away
from Jehovah for the glittering god of the Persians, there
appeared a dark line upon the edge of the forward horizon,
and soon the line deepened into a delicate fringe that 15
sparkled here and there as though it were sown with diamonds.
There, then, before me were the gardens and the
minarets of Egypt, and the mighty works of the Nile, and
I, I had lived to see, and I saw them.
When evening came I was still within the confines of the 20
desert, and my tent was pitched as usual; but one of my
Arabs stalked away rapidly toward the west without telling
me of the errand on which he was bent. After a while he
returned. He had toiled on a graceful service; he had
traveled all the way on to the border of the living world, 25
and brought me back for a token an ear of rice, full, fresh,
and green.
—Eothen.
1. Several aspects of the desert are herein described. The first is a native sheik. What are the others?