THE MIRROR OF LIES 33 



The oxen, after feeding a little, wandered 

 about — attempting from time to time to escape 

 homeward. They dreaded this plunge into the 

 waterless waste. They instinctively antici- 

 pated the heavy sufferings to which they were 

 doomed. So far they were not painfully 

 thirsty ; cattle bred on the borders of the desert 

 in their search for pasturage often go volun- 

 tarily waterless for forty-eight hours at a 

 stretch. Even in summer they do not feel this 

 much of an inconvenience. Late in the after- 

 noon the team was driven up and once more 

 inspanned. Again we pressed forward on our 

 course. 



The heat was still intense ; we knew it would 

 last until sundown. The primrose-tinted carpet 

 of the desert seemed to have turned to flame. 

 Before us some mocking genius of the sky 

 painted mirage-pictures. Blue seas gemmed 

 with verdant islands, rocky beaches from which 

 sprang groves of lofty trees, — mountain ranges 

 clothed with boskage and suggesting cool 

 streams in their valleys — enticed us onward. 

 Now and then the pictures grew distorted ; 

 occasionally they became inverted in the 

 twinkling of an eye. Then the mountains 

 stood poised upon their summits and the trees 

 hung downward. Perhaps the operator of the 



B 



