Though I Knew Of The Cheat, It Was Not Till The Spongy Foot Of My
Camel Had Almost Trodden In The Seeming Waters That I Could
Undeceive My Eyes, For The Shore-Line Was Quite True And Natural.
I Soon Saw The Cause Of The Phantasm.
A sheet of water heavily
impregnated with salts had filled this great hollow, and when dried
up by evaporation had left a white saline deposit, that exactly
marked the space which the waters had covered, and thus sketched a
good shore-line.
The minute crystals of the salt sparkled in the
sun, and so looked like the face of a lake that is calm and smooth.
The pace of the camel is irksome, and makes your shoulders and
loins ache from the peculiar way in which you are obliged to suit
yourself to the movements of the beast, but you soon of course
become inured to this, and after the first two days this way of
travelling became so familiar to me, that (poor sleeper as I am) I
now and then slumbered for some moments together on the back of my
camel. On the fifth day of my journey the air above lay dead, and
all the whole earth that I could reach with my utmost sight and
keenest listening was still and lifeless as some dispeopled and
forgotten world that rolls round and round in the heavens through
wasted floods of light. The sun growing fiercer and fiercer shone
down more mightily now than ever on me he shone before, and as I
dropped my head under his fire, and closed my eyes against the
glare that surrounded me, I slowly fell asleep, for how many
minutes or moments I cannot tell, but after a while I was gently
awakened by a peal of church bells, my native bells, the innocent
bells of Marlen, that never before sent forth their music beyond
the Blaygon hills! My first idea naturally was, that I still
remained fast under the power of a dream. I roused myself and drew
aside the silk that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into
the light. Then at least I was well enough wakened, but still
those old Marlen bells rung on, not ringing for joy, but properly,
prosily, steadily, merrily ringing "for church." After a while the
sound died away slowly. It happened that neither I nor any of my
party had a watch by which to measure the exact time of its
lasting, but it seemed to me that about ten minutes had passed
before the bells ceased. I attributed the effect to the great heat
of the sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air through which I
moved, and the deep stillness of all around me. It seemed to me
that these causes, by occasioning a great tension, and consequent
susceptibility, of the hearing organs had rendered them liable to
tingle under the passing touch of some mere memory that must have
swept across my brain in a moment of sleep.
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