422 A "DIAMOISTD OF THE DESERT." 



in the cold air. Its surface is barren to the last de- 

 gree ; immense chasms or canons cross it in all di- 

 rections, in which there was not the remotest trace of 

 vegetation, — great yawning depths with jagged beds 

 and crumbling sides, — sunless as the Cimerian cav- 

 erns of Avernus. 



As I clambered over crag after crag, I thought that 

 I had not in the summer-time anywhere lit upon a 

 place so devoid of life ; but, as if to compensate for 

 this barrenness, or through some freak of Nature, a 

 charming cup-like valley nestled among the forbidding 

 hills, and upon it I stumbled suddenly. Balboa could 

 hardly have been more surprised when he climbed 

 the hills of Darien and first saw the Pacific Ocean. 

 It was truly a " Diamond of the Desert," and the lit- 

 tle hermitage in the wilderness of Engadi was not a 

 more pleasing sight to the Knight of the Couchant 

 Leopard than was this to me. 



The few hardy plants which I had found in all 

 other localities had failed to find a lodgment upon the 

 craggy slopes of this rough cape, and the rocks stood 

 up in naked barrenness, without the little fringe of 

 vegetation which usually girdles them elsewhere ; 

 but down into this valley the seeds of life had been 

 wafted ; the grass and moss clothed it with green ; 

 and the poppies and buttercups sprinkled it over 

 with leaves of gold. In its centre reposed a little 

 sparkling lake, like a diamond in an emerald setting 

 ' — a little '^ charmed sea," truly, 



" Girt by mountains wild and hoary ; " 



and weird and wonderful as any that ever furnished 

 theme for Norland legend. 



From the lower margin of this lake a stream 



