124 LEAVES FROM THE 



marcli by phantom lakes. The colour was of the purest 

 azure, — so clear, that the shadows of the mountains which 

 bordered the horizon were reflected with extreme pre- 

 cision; and the delusion of its being a sheet of water was 

 thus rendered perfect. He had often seen the mirage in 

 Syria and Eg}'p)t: there he always found it of a whitish 

 colour, like morning mist, seldom lying steadily on the 

 plain, almost continually vibrating; but in the case above 

 described the appearance was very different, and bore the 

 most complete resemblance to water. This exact simi- 

 litude the traveller attributes to the great dryness of the 

 air and earth in the desert where he beheld it. There, 

 too, the appearance of water approached much nearer 

 than in Syria and Egypt, being often not more than two 

 hundred paces from the beholders, whereas he had never 

 seen it before at a distance of less than half-a-mile. 



Will it be believed that some zoologists (among them 

 we could mention a great name,* — ^the name of one who 

 did glorious service in his day, but who was too prone to 

 attempt to put Nature in the wrong) have endeavoured 

 to account for the construction of the camel by a theory 

 based upon the lengthened servitude of the animal ? 

 Now, if you grant, as you will not if you are wise, that 

 the callosities of the camel were the result of an infini- 

 tesimal series of genuflexions, the slave-tokens of a long 

 submission to the tyrant man, what will you make of the 

 internal organization — of the cisterns which enable the 

 animal to live where any creature not so provided must 

 perish from thirst without artificial aid ? Here are vast 

 sandy deserts to be traversed before man can communi- 

 cate with man. Where is the medium of communication ? 

 Nature presents an animal of surpassing endurance, 

 capable, upon emergency, of sustaining a thirst of ten 

 or twelve days' duration. The head is levelled directly 



* Buffon. 



