The Syrian desert between Baghdad and Damascus; two white tents, a prowling jackal, and a starry sky.
There was a sense of stir in camp; a rattle of tins and a neighing of animals; a faint odour of lighted charcoal was wafted in at the tent door. I opened one eye; X still slumbered peacefully at the opposite side of the tent. Arten appeared at the door with a jug of water and a light. "One o'clock," he said laconically as he placed them on the ground and retired. The stars were still shining, my bed was very warm. True, it was one o'clock in Turkish time only, but no Christian ought to be roused at that hour. X fell out of bed with a determined thump. "It's late," she said. I made no response, but, knowing from experience that X was always right, tried to reconstruct my ideas about time and reconcile the fact that it was late with its being one o'clock in the morning. Besides, if X ordained that it was late, in another half-hour the tent ropes would be loosened regardless of the stage our toilet had reached, and a falling tent, when one has just got one's back hair into shape, is exasperating if not damaging. I got up, and just managed to hurl myself through the door, mostly clothed, as the tent collapsed on the ground. X was already seated cross-legged on a rug outside, holding one blue hand over a few charcoal embers while she munched a piece of dry bread held in the other. "You need not think I have eaten all the butter," she said, "because there wasn't any." Satisfied with the explanation, I munched my bread in silence and swallowed a cup of thick tea; we had been carrying water for three days and it was getting opaque.
The stillness of the night which reigned outside was being invaded by the cries and movements of men; dark forms flitted about as they watered the animals and adjusted the nose-bags for the morning's feed. A horse, impatient of his tether, had broken loose and was galloping defiantly round the camp, inspired to further mischief by the methods of his pursuers, whose idea of reassuming their authority over him was to rush in his direction flourishing whips and uttering piercing cries. He was finally brought to bay entangled in some tent ropes, and a sudden lull fell on the disturbed atmosphere. The Oriental can work himself into a pitch of excitement which would keep a European in hysterics for several hours, and then suddenly drop the matter and become instantly silent and unconcerned. There seems no half-way stage between excessive noise and an indifferent silence.
Somewhat awakened by this incident, the men set to work to pack up the camp; the mules were unloosed and stood about with looks of resignation as the loads were adjusted on the creaking pack-saddles and secured with ropes. There was a subdued din and confusion without any sense of hurry. "Allāh! Allāh!" the native cries when he exerts himself in any way. "Aha, aha!" he cries with equal ardour, mingled with satisfaction, when his task is accomplished.
And now the last knot has been tied, the last cloak laid across the saddle; the last ember of the dying charcoal fire has been carefully raked out to light the cigarette, and we straggle slowly out into the gloom, leaving one charred spot and a sardine tin in the sandy waste.
There had been a suggestion of redness in the gathering light for the last few moments; streaks of silver and bars of gold lined the dusky sky. It is disconcerting to be travelling westwards when one wishes to be aware of a rising sun. I twisted myself round in the saddle and, leaving my horse to pick his way, advanced backwards. The whole scene was soon a vast glow of colour, the yellow sand of the desert holding and reflecting the brilliant reds and yellows; and now the sun appeared on the horizon line and slowly rose, until the whole disc of fire stood out in glowing magnificence and then gradually grew paler as he shared his substance with the surrounding sky. The long straggling line of our caravan, which had looked like a black serpent twisting through a sea of fire, became less black in the growing light, and men and animals assumed individual shapes.
In another half-hour the broad light of day showed the surroundings in their common aspect. I twisted round again in the saddle, and, having turned my back on poetry and romance, became only conscious of the temperature of my extremities. The cold was intense; X and the soldiers were far ahead; the caravan lagged behind; I was alone with cold hands and feet. Poets and philosophers have talked of being alone with the sun and the earth: if ever conditions were favourable for enjoying the sole companionship of these two elements, it might seem to be under the present circumstances. But in the desert one can be more alone even than this, for in some frames of mind the sky and the earth give one no sense of companionship. Cold and implacable the grim silent desert stretched away in front beyond the realms of space; the hard blue sky overhead stared into the abyss of Time, offering no link between Nature and Man. There was nothing one could take hold of; no cloud in the sky of which to ask the question "Whither?"; no shadow on the earth to which one could say "Whence?" You were thrown back on yourself, were only conscious of your beating heart and a void. The words of a great lover of nature rose up in my mind: "There is nothing human in nature. The earth, though loved so dearly, would let you perish on the ground and neither bring forth food nor water. Burning in the sky the great sun, of whose company I have been so fond, would merely burn on and make no motion to assist me." You felt keenly alive in the middle of this cold dead space, and you knew there was something alive in you which demanded something of it: had you no place in the economy of this great silent Universe? was there no way of making yourself heard or felt? Is it that the soul of man must be there to make things alive, and you were now crossing earth where no soul of man had crossed before, and all things were dead? From sheer agony I cried out; no answering echo followed; the sound fell flat and dead. The cold heavens stared placidly on, the surface of the earth was unruffled. I drew rein and listened intently: I heard the roar of London streets; the cry of the newsboy, the milkman's call, the tramp of a million hurrying feet; I heard the rush of trains and the screech of engines; I heard a thousand discordant voices in divers tongues where men were struggling and rushing after material ends. And dominating all this, infinitely louder and more distinct, making itself heard supreme and all powerful, filling the great space in which one had seemed eternally lost, I heard—the Silence of the desert. Why wish to make one's self heard?—better be still and listen to the voice of silence; let its words sink into you and become part of you, and so take some of its quiet and peace back with you into those crowded cities of men.
If there is a link between anything in you and this grim stretch of barren sand and impassive depth of distant sky, it is the response of its silence to the silence in you. It is the material aspect of silence in its crudest form appealing to and recognising in you the unspeakable realms of silence which exist in the region you are dimly conscious of beyond your senses. As we pray to the sea for its depth and calm, to the wind for its freedom, to the sun for its light, so we pray to the desert for its silence. Let your nature expand to the width of this horizon, to the height and depth of this sky, and fill it all with the eternity of this silence.
Ask of the sun why it shines, and if there is light in you it will answer; ask of the wind why it blows, and to fettered and free alike it gives its answer; ask of the desert why it is silent, and if there is silence in you you need no answer.