35 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. VI. 



they were frequently compelled to pass two days 

 without tasting food or water. Extensive — to the 

 eye boundless — plains of arid land, with neither 

 eminence nor hollow, were on all sides expanded 

 to the view : of these the prevailing colour was 

 brownish yellow, variegated with a few black and 

 sickly shrubs. Scarcely an object met the strain- 

 ing eye but an ostrich sometimes striding in the 

 blank horizon, or a solitary vulture soaring in the 

 sky. Over the wide desolation of the stony waste 

 not a tree could be discerned, and the only impres- 

 sion on the mind was — that of utter and hopeless 

 sterility. Occasionally, however, as we advanced, 

 the sameness of the scene was varied by a wide- 

 stretching surge-hke undulation. Our caravan was 

 then the only object in the landscape upon which 

 the eye could repose. Waggon after waggon slowly 

 rising to view, the van was to be seen advancing 

 over the swell, whilst the cattle and sheep were yet 

 hidden from the sight. The world before us was 

 still nought but barren earth and burning sky — 

 hill following hill, and hollow succeeding hollow, 

 with the same unvarying regularity as the billows 

 of the ocean. Not a green herb enticed the vision, 

 not a bird winged through the air : the loud crack- 

 ing of a whip rolling in suppressed echo along the 

 sun-baked ground alone disturbed the silence of the 

 sultry atmosphere, which gave to the azure vault 

 of heaven the semblance of an unnatural elevation 

 from the globe. 



Whilst the days were oppressively hot, and the 



