70 TRAVEL, ADVENTUKE, AND SPORT. 



had to take up his station at the gate of the serai, 

 and there he awaited the enemy like Hector at the 

 Scsean gate. The heat during the day was terrific. 

 We kept our heads bandaged with towels wrung out 

 with cold water ; still it seemed that only something 

 short of a miracle could save us from a brain- 

 fever : never in my life had I felt anything so crush- 

 ing, so overpowering, as this day's heat was. The 

 sky was as of brass, and over it there was the one 

 glory of the sun. The rocky sides of the mountains 

 above us appeared to glow and bum in its fierce rays. 

 The very earth gave out heat, and appeared to scorch 

 one like a fiery oven. The dark lines of date-groves, 

 sweeping across the plain, now appeared, in the hazy 

 glare of the sunlight, broken into thousands of frag- 

 ments. Several mirages, of a deep-blue colour, and 

 smooth and calm as the bosom of a lake, waved and 

 danced over the burning plain. The heat about four 

 or five in the afternoon was so great, and of so suffo- 

 cating a character, that I thought more than once if 

 those burning rocks above us were to topple over and 

 crush us in their ruin, such a death would be_a joyous 

 release from the dreadful sense of oppression. I had 

 heard that instances had occurred in the Persian Gulf 

 of the sailors rushing to the ship's side and jumping 

 overboard, and that with a certainty of death before 

 them. I now for the first time understood the feeling, 

 for I felt certain that any long continuance of the 

 heat we had that day would have driven many men 



