Page:The Burton Holmes lectures; (IA burtonholmeslect04holm).pdf/197

 second look, "No wonder that her husband feels compelled to live here, he must need lots of sand."

Next day we again begin our journey at that unearthly hour, 3 I need not say that slumber came easily to us the night before; that sixteen long hours of travel under a burning sun had produced a weariness which soon sent us to the land of dreams,—a land far less fantastic than the real world about us. Nor is it easy to shake off our weariness hours before the dawn. Yet at the first call we resolutely rise; all drowsiness fled before the awful fear of being left in such a place as "M'raier."

THE CHILL HOUR OF SUNRISE

A MILITARY CONVOY

In the cold, still night, preparations for the start are quickly made. Two soldiers stationed at this place assist the driver; our Arab companions crouch silently against the wall; in the distance are two camels looking like belated ships far out from shore. But who can put in words the weirdness of those early morning hours,—the unearthliness of the sleeping desert? Who can describe the solemnity of the Saharan sunrise? First comes a palish, pinkish glimmer in the east, that grows and grows until the morning-star is touched by it, and at the touch expires; quickly the vapors gather, clouds come hurrying from some mysterious nowhere to meet at the horizon the blood-red monarch of the sky. For the space of an hour or more they restrain his violence and retard the coming of his fury upon the earth, where for a space coolness, nay, even actual cold, prevails. But presently we who a