THE GARDEN OF THE DESERT 233 



.when men will hold this generation to be as 

 remote as we hold the dwellers of the Solutre 

 Cavern. 



There swayed a slender heliophila — the 

 modest sunlover who, in the course of age- 

 long, patient vigils, had drawn down and en- 

 snared the hue of the desert sky in her petals. 

 Far and near the plain was starred with 

 beauty. The small, inornate, thirst-land 

 butterflies had ventured out from the hills; 

 they flitted to and fro, lazy and listless. They 

 sported with Amaryllis in the sunshine and 

 then tried to flirt shamelessly with Iris, the shy 

 maiden on the nodding, hair-like stem — who 

 veiled her visage in sober brown by day, but 

 revealed it, white and eager to the stars whilst 

 she made the wings of the ni^ht-wind faint 

 with perfume. 



An oval shrub attracted one's attention — not 

 through its beauty, but because it was an 

 object startling and bizarre. It looked as 

 though covered with rags of various tints. 

 This was that criminal among vegetables — the 

 Roridula. A close inspection almost filled one 

 with horror; the plant was like a shambles. 

 The leaves resembled toothed traps; in most 

 of them insects were tightly gripped. After 

 these had been sucked dry, — drained of blood 



