On the fringe of the desert, under a thick group of palms, a small tent is pitched. Around it is a motley collection of bales and boxes, built into a sort of barricade. Outside this some Nubian boys are lounging or squatting. They are in holiday garb, so to speak, for their glossy skins have been freshly smeared with grease.

The travellers whom the tent shelters have come so far on a Nile boat, but as the river now describes a huge curve and abounds in rocks and rapids, they have decided to cut across the desert.

It is about noon. The sun stands almost vertically above the tent, in a cloudless deep blue sky, and his scorching rays are but slightly warded off by the loose open foliage of the date-palms. On the plain between the river and the desert the heat is oppressive, and the strata of air above the burning ground are heaving unsteadily, so that every picture is distorted and blurred.

A troop of horsemen, evidently hailing from the desert, appears on the horizon. They pay no heed to the village which lies further inland, but make straight for the tent. The horses are thin, but plainly of no ignoble breed; the riders are dark brown and poorly clad, with long loose burnooses more gray than white. Reaching the cluster of palms they dismount. One of them approaches the tent and enters with the dignity of a king. He is the chief of the camel-drivers (Sheikh el Djemali), to whom we, the travellers, had sent a messenger, asking him to provide us with the necessary guides, drivers, and camels.

“Peace be with you,” he says on entering, and lays his hand on his mouth, his forehead, and his heart.

“Peace be with thee, O Sheikh,” we answer, “the mercy of God and his blessing.”

“Great has been my desire to see you, ye strangers, and to learn your wishes,” he assures us, as he takes his seat on a cushion in the place of honour at our right hand.

“May God, the Almighty, reward thy goodness, O Sheikh, and bless thee,” we answer; and we order our servants to bring him coffee and a freshly lit pipe before serving ourselves.

With half-shut eyes he comforts his mortal body with the coffee and his immortal soul with the pipe; and thick clouds of smoke veil his expressive features. There is almost perfect stillness in the tent, which is pervaded with the fragrance of the exquisite Djebelit tobacco and a thin smoke by no means unpleasant. At last we think that we may venture to begin business without violating any of the rites of hospitality.

“Is it well with thee, O Sheikh?”

“The Giver of all Good be praised, it is well with your servant. And how is it with thee?”

“To the Lord of all be honour and glory, it is well with me. Great was our longing to see thee, O Sheikh.”

“May God in His compassion fulfil your desire and bless you. Are ye in your state of health well content?”

“Glory be to Allah and to His Prophet, on whom is His grace.”

“Amen, be it as thou hast said.”

Fresh pipes revive the immortal soul; renewed, almost interminable courtesies are interchanged; and at last the rigid conditions of etiquette have been fulfilled, and it is permissible to turn to business matters.

“O Sheikh, with the help of the All-merciful, I would travel through this stretch of desert.”

“May Allah give thee good speed.”

“Art thou in possession of camels both to run and to carry burdens?” we ask.

“I am. Is it well with thee, my brother?”

“The Almighty be praised, it is well. How many camels canst thou provide for me?”

Instead of an answer only countless clouds of smoke issue from the Sheikh’s mouth, and it is not until we repeat our question that he lays aside his pipe for some moments and says with dignity, “Sir, the number of the camels of Beni Said is known to Allah alone; no son of Adam has ever counted them.”

“Well, then, send me twenty-five beasts, and among them six trotters. And I have besides need of ten large water-bags.”

The Sheikh smokes afresh without giving answer.

“Wilt thou send the beasts we desire?” we repeat with emphasis.

“I shall do so to serve thee,” he answers, “but their owners require a high price.”

“How much?”

“At least four times the customary wages and hire will be necessary.”

“But Sheikh, Allah, the Most High, preserve thee: these are demands which no one will be willing to grant. Praise the Prophet!”

“God, the Preserver of all, be glorified and His messengers blessed! Thou art in error, my friend: the merchant who has his camp over there has offered me double what I ask; only my friendship for thee has allowed me to make so small a demand.”

In vain seems all haggling, all further business. Fresh pipes are brought and are smoked; renewed courtesies are exchanged; the names of Allah and His Prophet are freely misused on both sides; most precise inquiries after health and comfort are made mutually; until at length the studied courtesy of the native begins to waver and the traveller from the North loses patience.

“Then know, Sheikh, that I am in possession of a letter authorizing a demand for means of convoy from the Khedive and likewise one from the Sheikh Soliman; here are both of them, what dost thou demand now?”

“But, sir, if thou holdest a safe-conduct from his high majesty, why dost thou not demand the head of thy slave? It is at thy service, on his orders. I take thy wishes on my eyes and on my head. Command and thy servant obeys. Thou knowest the government prices. Allah protect thee; in the morning I shall send thee men, beasts, and water-skins.”

If any one imagines that all the preparations for the desert journey were thus brought to a satisfactory conclusion, he is indeed totally ignorant of the manners and customs of the people. In the morning none of the promised drivers or beasts had put in their appearance; only by afternoon did they begin to come in; not even on the following morning, but at soonest about the time of afternoon prayer, could one think of starting. “Bukra inshallah—to-morrow, if God will”—is their motto, and it baffles all commands. Indeed, there is much to do, much to arrange, and much to be planned before the journey can be undertaken.

In course of time the tent is the centre of a gay and lively picture. The sunburnt children of the desert bustle about among the baggage. Their activity is unbusiness-like to a degree, but they seem to try to make up for this by incredible noisiness. The baggage, which had been arranged in a sort of barricade, is scattered about; individual pieces are lifted and tested as regards both weight and bulk; one package is compared with another, selected and then rejected, strapped together and then pulled apart again. Each driver tries to outwit his neighbour, each endeavouring to secure the lightest load for his own beast; each one rushes about in opposition to the rest, and all are shouting and roaring, screaming and scolding, swearing and cursing, entreating and execrating. In anticipation of what is coming the camels also add to the noise right lustily, and if, instead of roaring, and growling and grumbling, they should keep silence for a while, that only means: Our time has not yet come, but it is coming! Anyhow, with or without the camels’ accompaniment, the stranger’s ear is harassed, literally tortured, by all the medley of sounds which fall upon it at once. For hours together the bustle, the racket, the uproar continues; the men scold and quarrel over the loads until they have had enough or more than enough; and at last the prelude comes to an end.

After peace is concluded they begin to twist the bast fibres of the date-palm into cords and ropes. With these they sling the bales and boxes cleverly together; they make hooks and eyes so that the two bundles may be fastened quickly to the saddle and as quickly loosened; they mend the ready-made nets which they have brought to hold the smaller packages; and they test the large and small skin bags, patching them where need be, and finally smearing them with ill-smelling varnish of colocynth. Lastly, they examine the sun-dried flesh, fill several bast bags with Kaffir-millet or dhurra, others with wood-charcoal, and some perhaps with camels’ dung, rinse out the skin-bags and fill them with water fresh from the stream. As the tedious business is brought to a close one hears each utter a hearty “Thank God”—“El hamdu lillahi”.

To look after all these preparations is the duty of the Chabir or leader of the caravan. According to its importance is his rank, but in all cases he must be what his title signifies—one who knows the way and the existing conditions. Experience, honesty, cleverness, mettle, and bravery are the requirements of his difficult, and not rarely dangerous office. He knows the desert as a mariner the sea, he can read the stars, he is familiar with every oasis and every spring on the course of the journey, he is welcome to the tent of every Bedouin or nomad chief, he understands all sort of precautions against break-down or peril by the way, he can cure snake-bite and scorpion-sting, or at least alleviate the sufferings of the injured, he wields the weapons of the warrior and of the huntsman with equal skill, he has the word of the Prophet not only on his lips but in his heart, he utters the “Fatiha” at starting, and discharges the obligations of Mueddin and Iman at the appointed times; in a word, he is the head of the many-membered body which travels through the desert. In the solitudes where nothing seems to point the way which other caravans have taken, where the wind obliterates every track almost as soon as the last camel has passed, he finds signs unseen by others which guide him aright. When the dry, ill-boding dust of the desert hides the everlasting heavens, his genius is his guiding star; he tests the drifting sand, measures its waves, and estimates their direction; he reads the points of the compass on a stem of grass. On him every caravan, every traveller depends without mistrust. Ancient and in part most remarkable laws, inscribed in no charter, yet known to all, make him responsible for the welfare of the journey and for the life of each traveller, except in so far as any inevitable dispensation of the Ordainer of destiny may decree otherwise.

At the sacred hour, the time of afternoon prayer, the leader announces to travellers and drivers that all is ready for the start. The brown men rush around, catching, leading, saddling, and loading the camels. Resisting to the utmost the beasts are forced to obey; they seem to have a vivid foreboding of a stretch of toilsome days. Their time has now come. Roaring, screaming, snarling, and grumbling, in obedience to the inimitable guttural commands of their masters and sundry gentle hints from the whips, they sink down on their bended knees; bellowing they adjust themselves to receive the unwelcome burden on their humped backs, and still bellowing they rise with their load. Not a few kick and bite in their efforts to resist being loaded, and it indeed requires all the inexhaustible patience of the drivers to subdue the obstinate creatures. But patience and tact master even camels. As soon as the rebellious beast has consented to kneel, one of the drivers stands up on its bent fore-legs, and with a quick grip seizes the upper part of the muzzle so that by pressing the nose he can stop the camel’s breathing; meanwhile two others from opposite sides lift the equally poised burden on to the saddle; a fourth runs fastening pegs through the loops of the ropes; and the fractious camel is loaded before he has quite regained his senses. As soon as all are loaded, the march begins.

It is now the turn of the well-saddled trotting camels. Each traveller fastens his weapons and indispensable personal luggage to the high, trough-shaped saddle fixed over the hump. He then proceeds to mount his steed. For the novice this is usually a critical business. With a bold spring he must leap into the saddle, and, as soon as he touches this, the camel bolts up. He rises backwards, first on his fore-knees, immediately afterwards on his long hind-legs, and finally on his fore-legs. To the second jerk the novice in camel-riding usually falls a victim, he is hurled out of the saddle and either kisses mother earth or falls on the beast’s neck and holds on tightly. The camel is much too ill-humoured to treat this as a joke or an accident. An angry cry bursts from its ugly lips; it flies into a passion with the poor traveller, hanging in a most unenviable position on its neck, and proceeds to shake itself free both of him and his baggage. It takes some time before the traveller from the North learns to bend his body forwards and backwards at the right moment so as to keep his seat as the camel springs up.

For our own part, we swing ourselves into the saddle with the agility of natives. Urging on our steed with a few strokes of the whip, and keeping it in due check by means of a fine nose-rein, we hasten after the leader. Our camel, a lank, loosely-built, long-legged creature, falls at once into that uniform, persistent, long-stepping, and most effective trot, to which it is trained from earliest youth, and which raises it high above all beasts of burden, and closely follows the leaders. The small head is stretched far in front; the long legs swing quickly backwards and forwards; behind them sand and small stones rise into the air. The burnooses of the riders flutter in the wind; weapons and utensils clatter together; with loud calls we spur on the beasts; the joy of travel seems to give our spirits wings. Soon we overtake the caravan of baggage-camels which had preceded us; soon every trace of human settlement disappears; and on all sides there stretches in apparent infinitude—the desert.

Sharply defined all around, this immense and unique region covers the greater part of North Africa, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to the Soudan, including whole countries in its range, embracing tracts of fertile land; presenting a thousand varieties, and yet always and everywhere the same in its essential features. In area, this wonderful region is nine or ten times larger than the whole of the German Empire, and three or four times larger than the Mediterranean. No mortal has thoroughly explored or even traversed it; but every son of earth who has set foot on it and crossed some part of it, is in his inmost heart impressed with its size and grandeur, its charm and its horror. Even on the most matter-of-fact Northerner who sojourns in the desert a lasting, ineffaceable impression is left by the glowing splendour of the sunlight and the parching heat of its days, by the heavenly peacefulness and the magical phantoms of its nights, by the witchery of the radiant atmosphere, by the dreadfulness of its mountain-moving storms; and many a one may have experienced, what the children of the desert so acutely feel—a longing to return, to breathe its air for a day, an hour, to see its pictures again with the bodily eye, to experience again that “unutterable harmony” whose echoes the desert awakens in the poetic soul. In short, there is a home-sickness for the desert.

It is literally and truly “El Bahhr bela maa”—the sea without water—the sea’s antithesis. To the sea the desert is not subject as are other parts of the earth; the might of the vitalizing and sustaining element is here annulled. “Water silently embraces all things”—the desert alone excepted. Over the whole earth the winds bear the clouds, the sea’s messengers, but these fade away before the glow of the desert. It is rarely that one sees there even a thin, hardly perceptible vapour; rarely can one detect on a leaf in the morning the damp breath of the night. The flush of dawn and the red glow of sunset are indeed seen, but only, as it were, in a breath which is scarce formed when it passes away. Wherever water gains the mastery, the desert changes into fertile land, which may, indeed, be poor enough, but the limits between them are always sharply defined. Where the last wave of the sacred Nile, raised above its level by man’s ingenuity, loses itself in the sand, the contrast is seen; the traveller, whose way lies from the river to the hills adjacent, may stand with one foot on a field of sprouting grain, and with the other touch the desert. It is not the sand itself which hinders the growth of plants, but solely the scorching heat which radiates through it. For, wherever it is irrigated or periodically watered, there, amid the otherwise plantless desert, a green carpet of vegetation is spread, and even shrubs and trees may grow.

Barren, pitifully barren is the desert, but it is not dead—not, at least, to those who have eyes to see its life. Whoever looks with a dull eye sees nothing but sandy plains and rocky cones, bare low grounds and naked hills, may even overlook the sparse reed-like grasses and shrubby trees of the deeper hollows, and the few animals which occur here and there. But he who really wishes to see can discover infinitely more. To the dull-eyed the desert is a land of horrors; they allow themselves to be so depressed by the glowing heat of the day that the blissfulness of the night brings them no comfort or strength; they ride into the desert trembling, and leave it shuddering; their sensations are all for the terrible, their feelings for the annoyances attendant on the journey; for the infinite sublimity of the desert such hearts are too small. But those who have really learned to know the desert judge otherwise.

Barren the desert is, we confess, but it is not dead. Thus, although the general aspect is uniform, the nature of the surface varies greatly. For wide stretches the desert is like a rocky sea, with strangely-shaped cones, abrupt precipitous walls, deeply-riven gorges, sharp-angled ridges, and wondrous towering domes. Over these the ceaselessly-blowing wind drifts the sand, now filling up hollows, now emptying them again, but always grinding, polishing, hollowing out, sharpening, and pointing. Black masses of sandstone, granite, or syenite, more rarely of limestone or slate, and here and there of volcanic rock glow in the sun, and rise in expressively-outlined ranges. On one side the wind robs these of every covering, driving the fine sand uninterruptedly over their summits, completely enveloping them in a veil in times of storm, and leaving no particle of sand at rest until it has been blown across the ridge. On the lee side, protected from the wind, lie golden yellow beds of the finest rolled sand, which form terraces one above another, each about a yard in height. But they also are in ceaseless movement, continually displacing one another from above downwards, and being renewed from the other side of the range. Strikingly contrasted with the black walls of the exposed side, these terraces of sand are visible from afar, and in certain lights they sparkle like broad golden ribbons on the hills. We may venture to call such ranges the regalia of the desert. No one unacquainted with the glowing South can picture the marvellous wealth of colour, the splendour and glamour, and the infinite charm which the overflowing sunlight can create on the dreariest and wildest mountains of the desert. Their sides are never clothed with the welcome green of woodland, at most the highest peaks bear a scant covering of bushes, to which the precipitation of vapour at this height allows a bare subsistence and a stunted growth. One misses the whispering of the beeches, and the rustling of the firs and pines; there is none of the familiar murmuring, or joyous chatter, or echoing roar of running water, which lays silver ribbons on our mountains at home, fringing them here with verdure, while in another place the sun shining upon rushing waterfall and whirlpool enhaloes them with rainbow colours; there is no mantle of ice and snow which the sun can transfigure into purple at dawn and sunset, or into glowing brightness at noon; and there is no fresh green from any mead. In short, all the witchery and charm of Northern mountain scenery is absent; and yet the desert mountains are not deficient in wealth of colour, and certainly not in majesty. Every individual layer and its own peculiar colour comes into prominence and has its effect. And yet, brilliant as may be the brightly-coloured and sometimes sharply-contrasted strata, it is on the continuously sand-polished, grandly-sculptured cones, peaks, gullies, and gorges that the light of heaven produces the finest play of colour. The alternations of light and shade are so frequent, the flushing and fading of colours so continuous, that a very intoxication of delight besets the soul. Nor do the first and last rays of the sun fail to clothe the desert mountains in purple; and distance sheds over them its blue ethereal haze. They, too, live, for the light gives them life.

In other regions the desert is for wide stretches either flat or gently undulating. For miles it is covered with fine-grained, golden-yellow sand, into which man and beast sink for several centimetres. Here one often sees not a single stem of grass nor living creature of any kind. The uniformly blue sky roofs in this golden surface, and contributes not a little to suggest the sea. In such places the track of the “ship of the desert” is lost as it is made; they are pathless as the sea; for them as for the ocean was the compass discovered. Less monotonous, but not more pleasant, are those regions on which loose, earthy, or dusty sand forms a soil for poisonous colocynth-gourds and the wholesome senna. Long low hills alternate with shallow and narrow hollows, and a carpet of the above-named plants, which from a distance seems green and fresh, covers both alike. Such places are avoided by both man and beast, for the camel and his driver often sink a foot deep into the loose surface-soil. Other tracts are covered with coarse gravel or flints, and others with hollow sand-filled balls, rich in iron, which look almost as if they had been made by human hands, and whose origin has not yet been very satisfactorily explained.[75] On such stretches, where the camel-paths are almost like definite highways, thousands of quartz crystals are sometimes exposed, either singly or in groups, like clusters of diamonds set by an artist hand. With these the sun plays magically, and such stretches gleam and sparkle till the dazzled eye is forced to turn away from them. In the deepest hollows, finally, the dust forms a soil, and there one is sure to find the reed-like, but very hard, dry, sharp, dark-green alfa, umbrella-shaped mimosas, and perhaps even tom-palms, pleasant assurances of life.

But of animal life also there is distinct evidence. To think of the desert as a dead solitude is as erroneous as to call it the home of lions. It is too poor to support lions, but it is rich enough for thousands of other animals. And all these are in a high degree remarkable, for in every respect they prove themselves the true children of the desert.

It is not merely that their colouring is always most precisely congruent with the dominant colour of the ground, that is generally tawny, but the desert animals are marked by their light and delicate build, by their strikingly large and unusually acute eyes and ears, and by a behaviour which is as unassuming as it is self-possessed. It is the lot of all creatures born in the desert to be restless wanderers, for sufficient food cannot be found all the year round at one place, and the children of the desert are endowed with incomparable agility, indefatigable endurance, untiring persistence; their senses are sharpened so that the pittance which is offered is never overlooked, and their clothing is adapted to conceal them alike in flight or in attack. If their life is perhaps somewhat hard, it is certainly not joyless.

The fact that almost all the desert animals agree in colouring with their surroundings explains why the traveller, who is not an experienced observer, often sees, at first at least, but little of the animal life. Moreover, the desert seems far poorer than it is, since it is not till dusk that most of its tenants leave their places of rest and concealment and begin to be lively. Some, however, force themselves on the attention of the least observant. Even though the traveller may fail to notice the various species of desert-lark which cross his path everywhere, and are noteworthy for their likeness to the ground and for their extraordinarily developed powers of flight, he cannot possibly overlook the sand-grouse; and though he may ride unobserving over the burrows of the jerboas, he is sure to observe a gazelle feeding not far from his path.

This antelope may be regarded as typically a desert animal. Although it is proportionate in all its parts, the head and sense-organs seem almost too large, and the limbs too delicate, in fact almost fragile. But this head carries a brain of unusual cleverness for a ruminant, and those limbs are as if made of steel, exceedingly strong and elastic, admirably suited for agility and untiring endurance. One must not judge the gazelle of the desert from its appearance in captivity, cooped up in a narrow space. What activity, adroitness, suppleness, grace, and spirit, it displays in its native haunts! How well it deserves to have been chosen alike by the Oriental and by the native of the desert as the image of feminine beauty. Trusting to its tawny coat, as well as to its incomparable agility and speed, it gazes with clear, untroubled eyes at the camels and their riders. Without seeming to be disturbed by the approaching caravan, it continues to browse. From the blossoming mimosa it takes a bud or a juicy shoot; between the sharp alfa leaves it finds a delicate young stem. Nearer and nearer comes the caravan. The creature raises its head, listens, sniffs the air, gazes round again, moves a few steps, and browses as before. But suddenly the elastic hoofs strike the ground, and the gazelle is off, quickly, lightly, and nimbly, as if its almost unexcelled speed were but play. Over the sandy plain it skims, quick as thought, leaping over the larger stones and tamarisk bushes as if it had wings. It seems almost to have left the earth, so surprisingly beautiful is its flight; it seems as if a poem of the desert were embodied in it, so fascinating is its beauty and swiftness. A few minutes of persistent flight carry it out of reach of any danger with which the travellers can threaten it, for the best trotter would pursue in vain, and not even a greyhound could overtake it. Soon it slackens its speed, and in a few moments it is browsing as before. And if the bloodthirsty traveller begins the chase in earnest, the sly creature has a tantalizing way of allowing him to get near it again; a second and a third time it cleverly gets out of range of his murderous weapons, until at length, becoming scared, it leaves all danger far behind. The further it gallops the more slender seem its body and limbs; its outline begins to swim before the eyes; at length it disappears on the sandy flat, merging into it and seeming to melt away like a breath of vapour. Its home has received and concealed the fugitive, removed it, as if magically, from vision, and left not a trace behind. But if the vision is lost to the eye it remains in the heart, and even the Western can now understand why the gazelle has become such a richly-flowering bud in the poesy of the East, why the Oriental gives it so high a rank among beasts, why he compares the eyes which kindle fires in his heart to those of the gazelle, why he likens the neck around which he throws his arms in love’s secret hour to that of the swiftest of the desert’s children, why the nomad brings a tame gazelle to the tent of his gladly-expectant spouse, that she may gaze into its tender eyes and reflect their beauty on the hoped-for pledge of their wedlock, and why even the sacred poet finds in the fair creature a visible emblem of his longing after the Most High. For even he, removed from the world, must have felt a breath of the passion which has purified the words and made smooth the verses and rhymes of the fiery songs in praise of the gazelle.

Less attractive, but by no means less interesting, are some other desert animals. Among the sparsely sprouting alfa there is a numerous flock of birds about the size of pigeons. Tripping hither and thither, scratching and scraping with their bills, they seek for food. Without anxiety they allow the rider to approach within a distance of a hundred paces. A good field-glass enables one to see not only every movement, but also the more prominent colours of their plumage. With depressed head, retracted neck, and body held almost horizontally, they run about in search of seeds, the few grains which the desert grasses bear, freshly unfolded panicles, and insects. Some stretch out their necks from time to time and peer circumspectly around, others, quite careless, paddle in the sand, preening their feathers, or lie at ease, half sideways, in the sun. All this one can distinctly see, and one can count that there are over fifty, perhaps nearly a hundred. What sportsman would their presence not excite? Sure of his booty, the inexperienced traveller shuts up his field-glass, gets hold of his gun, and slowly approaches the gay company. But the birds disappear before his eyes. None has run or flown, yet none is to be seen. It seems as if the earth had swallowed them. The fact is that, trusting to the likeness between their plumage and the ground, they have simply squatted. In a moment they have become stones and little heaps of sand. Ignorant of this, the sportsman rides in upon them, and is startled when they rise with simultaneous suddenness, and loudly calling and scolding, take wing and fly noisily away. But if he should succeed in bringing one down, he will not fail to be struck by their colouring and marking, which is as remarkable as their behaviour. The sand-coloured upper surface, shading sometimes into gray, sometimes towards bright yellow, is broken and adorned by broad bands, narrower bars, delicate lines, by dots, spots, points, streaks, and blurs, so that one might fancy at first sight that birds so marked must be conspicuous from a distance. But all this colour-medley is simply the most precise copy of the ground; every dark and light spot, every little stone, every grain of sand seems to have its counterpart on the plumage. It is no wonder then that the earth can, as it were, make the bird part of itself, and secure its safety, which is further assured by the creature’s strong wings, which are capable of incomparably swift flight. And so it is that the poetic feeling of the Arabs has idealized these sand-grouse in luxuriant fancy and flowery words, for their beauty fascinates the eye, and their marvellous swiftness awakens longing in the heart of mortals who are bound to the earth.

All other desert animals display characters like the two which we have described. Thus there is a lynx, the caracal, leaner and lanker, with longer ears and larger eyes than the rest of his race, moreover not striped nor spotted, but sand-coloured all except his black ear-tips, eye-stripes, and lip-spots. His hue varies slightly, being lighter or darker, and with more or less red, according to the locality in which he lives. There is also a desert fox, the fenec, the dwarf of the dog family, with dun-yellow fur, and extraordinarily large ears. The desert also harbours a small rodent, the so-called jumping-mouse, the jerboa: he suggests a miniature kangaroo, and has exceedingly long hind-legs, diminutive fore-legs, and a tail longer than the body with hairs in two rows. He is more harmless and good-natured, but also swifter and more agile than any other rodent.

The birds, the reptiles, and even the insects show the same stamp, though form and colouring may vary greatly. When any other colour besides sandy-yellow becomes prominent, if hair, feather, or scale be marked with black or white, ashy-gray or brown, red or blue, such decorations occur only in places where they are not noticeable when looked at from above or from the side. But where a mountain rises in the midst of the desert, it shows its varied character also in the animal life. On the gray rocks of the mountains in Arabia the steinbok clambers, the hyrax has its home, the bearded vultures nest, and not a few other birds are to be found on the peaks and cliffs, in the chasms and valleys. But from the dark rocks of more low-lying deserts the only sound one hears is the loud but tuneful song of the deep-black wheatear.

Thus the desert exhibits harmony in all its parts and in every one of its creatures, and this fact goes far to strengthen the impression made on every thoughtful, sensitive, and healthy mind—an impression received on the first day in the desert, and confirmed on every succeeding one.

If one would really know the desert and become in any measure at home there, one must have a vigorous constitution, a receptive mind, and some poetic feeling. Whoever shrinks from enduring the discomforts of the journey, whoever fears either sun or sand, should avoid the desert altogether. Even if the sky be clear, and the atmosphere pure and bright, even if a cooling breeze come from the north, the day in the desert is hard to bear. Almost suddenly, with scarce any dawn, the sun begins to exert his masterful power. It is only near the sea or large rivers that the dawn is heralded by a purple flush on the eastern horizon; amid the vast sand-plains the sun appears with the first reddening in the east. It rises over the flats like a ball of fire, which seems as if it would burst forth on all sides. The coolness of the morning is at once past. Directly after sunrise the glowing beams beat down as if it were already noon. And though the north wind, which may blow for months at a time and is often refreshing, may prevent the unequally expanded layers of air from shaping themselves into a mirage, yet it does not bring sufficient cooling to annul the peculiar heaving and quivering of the atmosphere which is seen over the sand. Heaven and earth seem to float in a flood of light, and an indescribable heat streams from the sun, and is reflected again from the sand. With each hour the light and heat increase, and from neither is there any escape.

The caravan starts at daybreak and proceeds without a sound. The baggage-camels step out briskly and their drivers keep pace with elastic steps; the riding-camels hasten at full trot, urged according to their strength, and soon leave the burden-bearers far behind. With unslackened speed they hurry on. All one’s bones seem to crack with the jerks and jolting caused by the rapid pace of the riding-camels. The sun beats down, piercing through all the garments with which one tries to protect oneself. Under the thicker clothing perspiration pours all over the body, on the more lightly clad arms and legs it evaporates as it is formed. The tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth. Water, water, water! is the one idea left to those unaccustomed to these discomforts. But the water, instead of being in iron vessels or flasks, is in the characteristic skin-bags of the country; it has been carried for days in the full sun on the camel’s back, it is more than lukewarm, of evil odour, thick, brown in colour, and tastes so vilely of leather and colocynth varnish that it produces nausea or even vomiting. But it seems as impossible to improve it as to do without it. Its penetrating taste and smell baffle all attempts to enjoy it in coffee or tea, or mixed with wine or brandy. Undiluted wine or brandy simply increase the burning thirst and oppressive heat. The traveller’s condition becomes one of torture before the sun reaches the zenith, and his distress is the greater the worse the water. But it has to be and is endured. And although the Northerner can never conquer his repugnance to the kind of water which we have described, he grows used to the heat, at first so unbearable, and, as he begins to be at home with his steed, other discomforts are also lessened. In the future he will make sure of water which is at least clean, and will soon cease to complain of its warmth or of any other inevitable inconveniences of his journey.

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.

Around the spring, long before men appeared to take possession, a company of green plants had effected settlement. Who can tell how they got there? Perhaps the sand-storm sowed the seeds, which first germinated by the well, and grew into plants, with leaves, flowers, and another generation of seeds which were scattered through whole valleys. It is certain, at least, that they were not planted by men, for the mimosas which form the greater part of the little colony occur also in springless hollows, where one sees them sometimes singly, sometimes forming a small thicket of ten or twenty. They alone are able to keep life awake in the desert; they put forth green leaves, they blossom and send forth fragrance—how fresh and balmy! In their pleasant shade the gazelle rests; from their tops resound the songs of the few feathered songsters of the desert. The sappy leaves, seen amid the stiff masses of limestone, the cones of black granite, and the dazzling sand, do the eyes good like a meadow in May; their flowers as well as their shade refresh the soul.

In the larger, more copiously watered oases, men have planted palms, which lend a fresh charm to the settlement. The palm is here all in all: it is the queen of trees, the giver of fruit which sustains man and binds him to his little spot of earth, the tree around which saga and song are twined, the tree of life. What would an oasis be without palms? A tent without a roof, a house without inmate, a well without water, a poem without words, a song without tune, a picture without colour. The palm’s fruits feed the nomad herdsman and the settler alike, they become wheat or barley in his hand, they satisfy even the tax-gatherer of his lord and master. Its stems, its crown, its narrow leaves supply him with shelter and utensils, mats, baskets, and sacks, ropes and cords. In the sandy desert one first appreciates its full worth and importance, it becomes the visible emblem of Arabian poetry, which rises like it from frequently barren ground, which grows strong and fades not, which raises itself on high, and there only bears sweet fruit.