Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/276

 

RETURNING TO CIVILIZATION.

Although we had passed a quiet night, our experiences of the preceding day had not been of a character to make us wish to prolong our slumbers far into the morning. I was up at half-past four, which was generally understood in the camp to mean that there was no more rest for man or beast. By six o'clock we had had our breakfast, the tents were struck, and we were in the saddle. The sun was just rising over the vast undulating plains as we set out on our march. Who would not rise early for the exhilaration of such a morning ride? We were approaching the end of our journey; our long and toilsome marches were nearly ended; the Desert was behind us, and the Land of Promise was before us.

I have spent between four and five years of my life in foreign countries — a portion of the time in distant parts of the earth — and have had many and varied experiences, but nothing I think that imparted a sensation quite so exquisite as this coming up out of the desert — out of void and vacancy, out of vast spaces and solemn silences — into the world of life and sound and motion. The return is very gradual. Nature gives signs of the coming change by an occasional quiver in her frame; perchance a rill trickling in the sands marks where the life-current is flowing faintly in her veins; then a new vegetation shows itself, as familiar flowers peep out by the way, and the small grasses begin to appear — tokens of a new existence into which we