Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/160

144 uries—dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and dashed through the fire of the candle till they fairly extinguished it with their burning limbs. Those who had failed in attaining this martyrdom suddenly became serious, and clung despondingly to the canvas.

By-and-by there was brought to me the fragrant tea and big masses of scorched and scorching toast, and the butter that had come all the way to me in this Desert of Asia from out of that poor, dear, starving Ireland. I feasted like a king,—like four kings,—like a boy in the fourth form.

When the cold, sullen morning dawned, and my people began to load the camels, I always felt loth to give back to the waste this little spot of ground that had glowed for a while with the cheerfulness of a human dwelling. One by one the cloaks, the saddles, the baggage, the hundred things that strewed the ground and made it look so familiar—all these were taken away and laid upon the camels. A speck in the broad tracts of Asia remained still impressed with the mark of patent portmanteaus and the heels of London boots; the embers of the fire lay black and cold upon the sand, and these were the signs we left.

My tent was spared to the last, but when all else was ready for the start then came its fall; the pegs were drawn, the canvas shivered, and in less than a minute there was nothing that remained of my genial home but only a pole and a bundle. The encroaching Englishman was off, and instant upon the fall of the canvas, like an owner who had waited and watched, the genius of the Desert stalked in.

To servants, as I suppose of any other Europeans not much accustomed to amuse themselves by fancy or memory, it often happens that after a few days journeying the loneliness of the Desert will become frightfully oppressive. Upon my poor fel-