100 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



often hack out liis eyes before death relieves him of all pain. 

 These corsairs of the air accompany the caravan as sharks ac- 

 company a vessel ; for tliey reckon, like the tyrants of the seas, 

 upon the tribute of the journey. 



In a short time the dry atmosphere changes the corpse into 

 a natural mummy, which, ' grinning horribly a ghastly smile,' 

 seems to defy the desert. Perchance some future caravan passing 

 along throws some pious dust upon the shrivelled body, but the 

 wind soon uncovers it again, for the shifting desert will not 

 even grant a burial to its victims. On every great caravan 

 route such mummies protruding from the sand meet the eye of 

 the traveller, telling him, in their mute but expressive language, 

 ' Such, stranger, may be thy fate to-morrow.' 



The arid desert produces only a few plants and animals, but 

 stamps them all with its own peculiar mark. J'rom the tawny 

 Bedouin to the worm scarcely distinguishable in the sand, it 

 gives all its cre?tures the same dress, the same colour, which 

 might justly be called the colour of the desert. It is the pale 

 greyish-yellow tint which belongs as well to the gazelle as to 

 the small lark of the sandy wastes. Among the birds there 

 are no doubt many modifications of this general rule, and the 

 deviations increase as the desert gradually merges into the 

 more fertile steppes, but even here its characteristic mark is 

 not to be mistaken. 



A wandering desultory life is the lot of the children of the 

 desert. The nourishment afforded them by their sterile home 

 is too scanty for sedentary habits, and cannot be obtained 

 without exertion. But Nature has endowed them with an 

 activity and powers of endurance which distinguish them from 

 many other animals, and enable them to exist where less hardy 

 or less spirited beings would perish. Even such of them as 

 originally did not belong to the desert, but since several gene- 

 rations have learnt to make it their home, such as the noble 

 horse of the Bedouin, acquire the spirit it engenders. The same 

 love of independence, the same attachment to their native 

 haunts, animates all the inhabitants of the desert. Separated 

 from their home they droop and pine away. The richest food 

 affords the captive gazelle no compensation for the meagre 

 herbage of the sandy waste ; the widest space seems narrow 

 when compared with its boundless extent. 



