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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the desert, the shifting wind-blown sands, uniting with the sediment 

 discharges of periodically flowing streams, finding here secure and 

 lasting anchorage. Our wagon stuck and our horses stuck, and no 

 ill use of the lash would for a time induce them to budge. Mr. Le 

 Boutillier and I dismounted and applied ourselves to the wheels, 

 but to little purpose. Coaxing, worrying, and pushing, we suc- 

 ceeded in making a few yards at a time, and then dropped to a 

 condition of seemingly hopeless immobility. It really looked for a 

 time as though we should be obliged to remain where we were until 





The Prater in tue Desert. 



assistance picked us up, just when, or of what kind of assistance that 

 was to be, we knew not. The sun had dropped very nearly to the 

 horizon, its long horizontal rays illumining the desert with that 

 wonderful glow of red which nothing but an artist's brush can pic- 

 ture. The whole landscape was suffused with mellow light, to the 

 pure harmony of which was added the quiet of an almost absolute 

 silence. ISTo bark or howl of a lurking animal, no sound of bird, 

 whether in twitter or song, broke upon the stillness of the evening- 

 hour; we alone were the offenders — not, however, with any intent 

 to disturb N^ature's slumbers, but merely to extricate ourselves from 

 our uncomfortable position. Between coaxing, pulling, and strain- 

 ing, and a generous trudge through the sand, we succeeded in cover- 

 ing the few miles that lay between us and the next oasis, Mreir. 

 This oasis counts about twenty thousand palms, and, like all others 

 that we had seen, is divided up by garden walls into distinct prop- 

 erties, between which meanders the trodden way of the caravan. 



