XIII. OASIS. THERE came suddenly a strip of green land. It was like a branch of flowers yet fresh, drifting out to a ship at sea. The birds sang clearly in the early morning, high over our heads flashing in the bright air. The damp sand was delicately printed with the tracks of birds. The desert lay around us in low hillocks, like the long billows of a retiring ocean. The air blew fresh and sweet from the west. Fresh and sweet, for it was the breath of the Mediterranean. And suddenly we came upon green land. The country was like a rolling pasture. Grass and dandelions, and a myriad familiar wild flowers lay, wreaths of welcome, at our feet. There were clumps of palms and single acacias. The cactus, also, that we call Indian fig, shapeless, prickly, but full of the sun and fat with promise. The wind blew, the birds sang, the trees waved. They were the outposts of life, whence it nodded and beckoned to us, and threw us flowers as we emerged from the death of the desert. It was a dream in beauty and in fleetness. MacWhirter-incarnate common-sense-bore us straight through the dream into the desert again. They receded, they sank into vapory distance, those beautiful forms-the waving trees, the singing birds. Yet they were Palestine, they the symbols of the Holy Land. Promises and hopes, they sing and wave upon the ending desert, and I greeted them as the mariner in that ship at sea greets the south and romantic Spain, in the bough of blossoms floating by him. The strip of green land passed, and we entered upon pure Sahara. It was the softest, most powdery sand; tossed by light winds it drew sharp angles, glittering white angles, against the dense blue. The last trace of green vanished as we passed deeper among the ridges. The world was a chaotic ocean of sparkling white sand. The desert was, in that moment, utter and hopeless desert, but was never desert again. Bare, and still, and bright, it was soft beyond expression, in the fitful game of shadows played upon it by the sun-for vapors were gathering overhead. Suddenly, around one of the sharp angles—and I could not, until then, tell if it were near or farsuddenly a band of armed Arabs came riding towards us. They curvetted, and dashed, and cara coled upon spirited horses, leaping, and running, and prancing round imperturbable MacWhirter and El Shiraz, who plodded sublimely on. The Arabs came close to us, and greeted our men with endless kissings and salaams. They chatted and called aloud; their weapons flashed and rattled, their robes flowed in the wind-then, suddenly, like a cloud of birds, they wheeled from us and away they sped over the horizon. We plodded on. The eyes of Khadra smiled delight at the glittering party as it disappeared. The Armenian's little white mare paced toilingly through the loose sand. It was high noon, and, advancing silently, we passed over the near horizon of the ridges, and came upon a plain of hard sand. Not far away lay a town of white stone houses, and the square walls of a fort-and beyond them all, the lustrous line of the sea. It was el Harish, on the edge of the desert. The boys and girls ran out and surrounded us with staring curiosity. Some were running horses, some passed on little donkeys, and others were unloading camels. Then came a swarthy-faced official in tattered garments. He demanded our passports, and to him, inly lamenting that "the shadow of God upon earth" had dwindled to such as this, we delivered them. Under the crescent moon the camp was pitched. And under the crescent moon all Arabia was but a sea-beach. For unmitigated sand lay from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. The curious children flocked out of the town, and watched, with profound attention, the ceremonies of infidel tea-making, and the dinner of unbelievers. The muezzin called from the minaret, and the children left us to the sky, and the sand, and the sea. The Mediterranean called to us through the darkness. The moonlight was so vague that the sea and the desert were blent. The world was sunk in mysterious haze. We were encamped, it seemed on the very horizon, and looked off into blank space. After the long silence of the desert, it was strange to hear the voice of the sea. It was Homer's sea, the only sea of romance and fame; over which Helen sailed and the Argonauts-out of which sailed Columbus. It was St. John's sea and Alexander's --Hadrian's and the Crusaders'. Upon its shore stood Carthage, and across its calm the Syrens sang. |