Madden's Travels in Turkey, fyc. 129 



seemed to be to keep a straight course, occasionally looking 

 back to observe their track, and to correct any little deviations. 

 The wadys or wells where they took up their stations for the 

 night, afforded some bad water. The dew which then fell was 

 heavy. The Bedouin maxims for preserving health in the 

 Desert are highly extolled by the author. They are, never to 

 drink in the day-time, nor to sleep with the head uncovered. 

 The more a traveller drinks during the day, the more thirsty 

 he gets ; at night, he may drink to his heart's content. The 

 Bedouins seem to follow the example of their camels, and lay 

 in overnight a stock of water for the next day's journey. The 

 author is half inclined to attach some value to the Arab notion 

 of a morbific influence in the moon. Ophthalmia and catarrh 

 are especially considered to be owing to moonbeams. " Strange 

 as this may seem," says the author, " I really believe there is 

 some influence more than that of common dampness in the 

 nights here.'' 1 He was strangely perplexed with that singular 

 phenomenon of the Desert, the mirage ; but this we must 

 allow him to describe in his own animated language. 



" We had now journeyed in the Wilderness three days without 

 meeting a human being', and without seeing any living creature. 

 With all my endeavours to resist the delusion of the Mirage, I found 

 it quite impossible this day to persuade myself that my senses did 

 not deceive me. At one moment, the rippled surface of a lake was 

 before my eyes ; at another time, a thick plantation appeared oh 

 either side of me ; the waving of the branches was to be seen, and 

 this view was only changed for that of a distant glimpse of a city: 

 the mosques and minarets were distinct, and several times I asked 

 my Bedouins if that were not Suez before us; but they laughed at 

 me, and said it was all sand ; and what appeared to me a city, a 

 forest, or a lake, the nearer I endeavoured to approach it the far- 

 ther it seemed to recede, till at last it vanished altogether, ■ like the 

 baseless fabric of a vision, leaving not a wreck behind.' If I were 

 to speak of the nature of the Mirage from my own sensations, I 

 should say, it was more a mental hallucination than a deception of 



(the sight ; for, although I was aware of the existence of the Mirage, 

 I could not prevail on myself to believe that the images which were 

 painted on my retina were only reflected, like those in a dream, 

 from the imagination ; and yet so it was." Vol. ii. pp. 199, 200. 



The theory of the formation of a sandy desert occupied the 

 author's thoughts. Whence came the accumulation of sand ? 

 Did it always exist there, and occupy the same extent of sur 

 face ? or can its origin be traced to depopulation and the want 

 of cultivation ? The sight of the wide ocean of the Wilderness 



JULY— sept., 1829. K 



