A kind of lodge, paved with chiselled silver, and hung with lighted lamps, rises in the depth of the crypt; it is there that, according to the venerated tradition, the Angel of the Eternal appeared to Moses in the midst of the burning bush.
III.—Where Nothing Changes
March 16. We have now left the blue lonely waters and the red granite cliffs of the Gulf of Akaba, and entered the great desert of Tih, the solitudes of which, our camel-men say, are as immense and as flat as the sea, and the scene of incessant mirages. It is peopled by a few tribes of savage Bedouins, descended from the Amalekites. This is the land in which nothing changes: the true Orient, immutable in its dust and its dreams. Behind the barren hill on which we have camped, Arabia Deserta unrolls the infinite tract of its red desolation. On our right is the wild wilderness of Petra and the sinister mountains of the land of Edom. In front stretches the gloomier waste of the plateau of Tih.
From the spot on which we stand, light tracks, made by the regular movement of caravans, run out into the distance, innumerable as the threads in a weaver's loom. They form two rays: one dies away into the west, the other into the north. The first is the route of the believers coming from Egypt and Morocco; the second, which we are about to follow, is the path of the pilgrims from Syria to Palestine. This wild crossway of the desert, along which pass every year crowds of twenty or thirty thousand men marching to the holy city of Mecca, is now empty, infinitely empty, and the mournful, vacant grandeur which it wears under the sombre sky is terrible. The habitual halting-place of multitudes, it is strewn with tombstones, little rough, unhewn blocks, one at the head, the other at the feet—places in which the pious pilgrims who passed by have laid down to rest for eternity.
Our dromedaries, excited by the wide, open space in front of them, raise their heads and scent the wind, and then change their languid gait into something that becomes almost a race. It is of a mud-grey colour, this desert that calls to them, and as even as a lawn. As far as the eye can reach, no change is seen in it, and it is gloomy under a still gloomier sky. It has almost the shimmer of something humid, but its immense surface is all made of dry mud, broken and marked like crackled porcelain.
The next day the colour of the wilderness changes from muddy grey to deep black, and the sun soared up, white-hot, in a clear blue sky. The empty, level distances trembled in the heat, and seemed to be preparing for all sorts of visions and mirages.
"Gazal! Gazal!" (gazelles) cried the sheik. They were passing in an opposite course to ours, like a whirl of sand, little creatures slenderly fine, little creatures timid and quick in flight. But the moving, troubled air altered their images and juggled them away from our defeated eyes.
Then the first phantom lake appeared, and deceived even the Bedouin chief—the water was so blue, and the shadows of a border of palm-trees seemed to be reflected in it. And very soon the tempting waters show on all sides, retreating before us, changing their shapes, spreading out, going away, coming back; large lakes or winding rivers or little ponds edged with imaginary reeds. Every minute they increase, and it seems like a sea which little by little gains on us—a disquieting sea that trembles. But at noon all this blue phantasmagoria vanishes abruptly, as if it were blown away at a breath. There is nothing but dried sands. Clear, real, implacable, reappears the land of thirst and death.
Easter Sunday, March 25, 1894. We were awakened this morning by the singing of the larks. After travelling for three hours, look, here are some trees—the first we have seen—a long valley full of trees; and there, on the far sky-line, is the blue edge of the sea. And at last Gaza, with its white minarets and grey houses; Gaza, in the midst of its gardens and its woods; Gaza, that seems a sumptuous city to us poor wanderers of the desert!
The moon is high. It is the hour that our Bedouins depart. Seated on their tall swinging beasts, the sheiks go by, and wave to us a friendly farewell. They are returning to the terrible land where they were born and where they love to live, and their departure brings to an end our dream of the desert. To-morrow, at break of day, we shall ascend towards Jerusalem.