50 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



mournful mountains, with their dark shadows, 

 seemed to brood over hot desolation. The 

 rusted and battered stern of a wrecked steamer 

 stuck up at an acute angle from the surges. 

 Shortly after we picked up the shores of Arabia. 

 Note the advantages of a half ignorance. 

 From early childhood we had thought of Arabia 

 as the " burning desert " flat, of course and 

 of the Red Sea as bordered by " shifting sands " 

 alone. If we had known the truth if we had 

 not been half ignorant we would have missed 

 the profound surprise of discovering that in 

 reality the Red Sea is bordered by high and 

 rugged mountains, leaving just space enough 

 between themselves and the shore for a sloping 

 plain on which our glasses could make out occa- 

 sional palms. Perhaps the " shifting sands of 

 the burning desert " lie somewhere beyond ; but 

 somebody might have mentioned these great 

 mountains ! After examining them attentively 

 we had to confess that if this sort of thing con- 

 tinued farther north the children of Israel must 

 have had a very hard time of it. Mocha shone 

 white, glittering, and low, with the red and white 

 spire of a mosque rising brilliantly above it. 



