110 



THE DESERT 



Pre- 

 conceived 

 impressions. 



Deception 

 by sunlight. 



Distorted 

 forms and 

 colors. 



a pink air, a blue shadow, or a field of yellow 

 grass sunlit lemon-yellow grass ! They have 

 been brought up from youth to believe that air 

 is colorless, that shadows are brown or gray or 

 sooty black, and that grass is green bottle- 

 green. The preconceived impression of the 

 mind refuses to make room for the actual im- 

 pression of the eyes, and in consequence we are 

 misled and deluded. 



But do the eyes themselves always report the 

 truth ? Yes ; the truth of appearances, but as 

 regards the reality they may deceive you quite 

 as completely as the mind deceives you about 

 the apparent. And for the deception of the 

 eyes there is no wizard's cell or magician's cabi- 

 net so admirably fitted for jugglery as this bare 

 desert under sunlight. Its combination of 

 light and air seem like reflecting mirrors that 

 forever throw the misshapen image in unex- 

 pected places, in unexpected lights and colors. 



What, for instance, could be more perplexing 

 than the odd distortions in the forms and col- 

 ors of the desert mountains ! A range of these 

 mountains may often look abnormally grand, 

 even majestic in the early morning as they 

 stand against the eastern sky. The outlines of 

 the ridges and peaks may be clear cut, the light 



