Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/213

 or Nineveh, so thickly was the plain strewn with what looked like bricks, yet there was not a brick among them, but only broken pieces of red stone which had crumbled from the mountain sides. Now and then we would stop our camels to count the number of colors, in which we could easily distinguish all the hues of the rainbow. The most prominent of these were sober colors — dark brown, and red, and yellow, and olive green — the very shades which it is the fashion of the day to use in the decoration of our interiors. I leave to painters to imagine the effect of these dark, rich colors thrown broadcast upon the mountains! The coldest and dullest nature must catch some glow and inspiration in passing through gorges where the cliffs on either hand are like battlements of walled cities, and the loftier peaks like castle towers, from which are hung out banners in purple and gold. How can a traveller be unmoved who

 "By this vision splendid Is on his way attended, Until at length he sees it fade away, And melt into the light of common day"

The next morning we said good-bye to granite. The great mountain range which covers all the lower part of the Peninsula of Sinai, here sinks down like a wave in the sea, and is seen no more. It is completely submerged, not reappearing till it lifts up its head again in the mountains of the Caucasus, while over it here flows the dark red sandstone. New mountains come into view, which are often pyramidal in form, with strata as regular as the layers of the Great Pyramid, looking as if they might have been piled up by some race of Titans before man came upon the earth. The change of the geological formation is marked by a complete change of vegetation. In the soft sand little daises begin to put up their white heads,