Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/184

 SOUTHWARD BOUND

THE ROAD THAT GOES DOWN TO THE DESERT

when in a ten-minute stroll we may lose ourselves in this city of mud walls and towering palm-trees, this dream-city so silently impressive? Its very coloring is reposeful; the glare of whitewashed walls is wanting, and all is in tender greens and restful browns and yellows. True; but the love of the unknown, the desire for the unexpected, and the fever for novelty that is the torment of every traveler bid us leave Biskra and its comforts and seek more vivid impressions of desert life in regions where the telegraph and railway are not known. Accordingly we make our final preparations and retire early, for the courier wagon starts at three o'clock in the morning to profit by the coolness of the early hours. How unearthly was that departure of two half-awakened travelers, who in the silence of the desert night were whirled away from Biskra as from a final outpost of civilization into the unknown! When really awake to their surroundings, they find themselves far out upon the vast desert, where hour after hour three miserable animals drag the lumbering vehicle along