The Desert of Gobi properly so called is a little less in extent than the Sahara; it must not be forgotten, however, that the countries bordering it, especially on the west, are actual deserts.
Note 15, Chap. XIX., [Page 350].
The depressing effect on the mind of the traveller, produced by the aspect of monotonous scenery, has been noticed by M. Gabriel Charmes, in an excursion in the Auvergne (Journal des Débats, July, 1881), who attributes the habitual lowness of spirits of the peasantry to the cheerless uniformity of certain parts of the Cantal, amid which they dwell. As some of these are said to become sorcerers from the prolonged effect, may not the gloomy character of the Mongolian religion be largely attributable to the dismal baldness of their desert? M. Gabriel Charmes thus describes the mountains of the Cantal and their influence on the mind of the spectator: “I have referred to those great, sterile, melancholy table-lands, that are everywhere met with in the Cantal and the mountainous district of the Puy-de-Dôme. In the spring even, when the long grass is mingled with an abundance of flowers, it is almost impossible to traverse them, and quite impossible to dwell there, without feeling some vague, unaccountable weight or oppression on the spirits, similar to that experienced by those who live on the sea-shore, in sight of the incessant monotony of the waves. The clouds depict on them great dark shadows, which, driven on by a brisk wind, flit past like gigantic phantoms. This perpetual play of shadows and light is the only diversity that arrests the eye in the interminable uniformity. They, therefore, who frequent them a long while, acquire, in course of time, strange habits of mind. It is a very widely spread opinion among the peasantry of the Auvergne, that the cow-herds, who pass most of the year on the lonely hills, actually become wizards. The special fixedness, perhaps, which the contemplation of an unvarying nature stamps on their sight, is the cause of this prejudice.... The mind contracts there a kind of natural melancholy, and this seems to dispose it to sadness rather than joyousness.” It is not probable that the monotony of the waves produces the same effect, for here we have movement, with which the mind sympathises, and, being thus relieved, does not readily become a prey to melancholy. The sea is very different from the motionless, unchanging desert.—W. C.
Notes bearing no initials at the end are taken from the Original Edition.
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