A WEARY DAWN 35 



outspanned. There was not a breath of wind. 

 ,The desert was vocal with unfamiliar sounds. 

 The weird cries of the jackal were borne from 

 afar across the plains; the clucking lizards 

 put out their heads and conversed from burrow 

 to burrow; the plaintive notes of the night- 

 flying grouse fell from the sky like a rain of 

 echoes. Under the protecting wing of dark- 

 ness the solitude became populous and vocal 

 with strange tongues. 



We inspanned after an hour's rest. The 

 longest and most wearying effort of our 

 pilgrimage had now to be undertaken; our 

 journey's end had to be reached before the 

 yokes again were loosened. The night seemed 

 endless; we were spent from the long travail. 

 The yearning for sleep became acutely 

 painful. We swayed and staggered as we 

 followed the creaking wagon. 



Dawn broke at length, but we were too 

 weary, too undone to enjoy its loveliness. As 

 the light grew we became aware of an abrupt 

 eminence of granite on our left front ; it arose, 

 in the form of a steep cone, from a monstrous, 

 agglomerated mass of copper-tinted, shapeless 

 hummocks. This was Bantom Bere, — the 

 ' Belted Mountain," — its red-cinctured bulk 

 bathed in the first sunbeams, its feet entangled 



