100 THE MIRAGE. 



the ground beneath him like unto the hot ashes of a forge, and the air 

 around glowing as the vapour of a furnace. No water of any kind has 

 been seen for days, and the scanty supply of the skins reduced to such a 

 small quantity, as to render what little is left as precious as gold. 

 Every eye is dim, every tongue, swollen, parched and rent, cleaves to 

 the roof of the mouth, and the Arabs begin to talk of killing the very 

 camels for the sake of the water which these provident animals always 

 keep in a large bag the fifth stomach. In such circumstances it is 

 easily to be imagined with what delight the traveller, in the very heat 

 of the day, perceives before him one or more clear glassy lakes ! He 

 cannot utter the joyful cries of ' water, water,' but puts his beast to its 

 utmost speed, and if he thinks of any thing but the instant means of 

 allaying his burning throat, it is to wonder that none of the natives, 

 whose wants are equal to his own, does not seem similarly excited by the 

 appearance. But the traveller soon finds, to his cost, that he cannot 

 reach the water for which he longs. The shore of the lake recedes as he 

 approaches, and its dimensions are consequently contracted, until, if he 

 proceeds, it disappears, and is frequently formed anew at a distance 

 beyond him ! Pausing to consider this phenomena, the traveller will 

 easily perceive that it is the Siraub of which he has heard ; but the most 

 attentive consideration will not enable him to detect any difference in 

 the exhibition from that which is presented by the appearance of real 

 water ! Often the clear, calm azure, reflects the surrounding objects with 

 precision and distinctness, and frequently the whitish, vibratory 

 volume, exhibits the contours of the reflected objects as badly terminated 

 with that sort of indecision which always accompanies such representa- 

 tions in water slightly ruffled by the wind. Local circumstances some- 

 times contribute to give more striking effect to the illusion. In Lower 

 Egypt, for instance, the villages, in order to avoid the effects of the 

 inundations of the Nile, are built on small eminences, scattered through 

 a plain of vast extent. Towards the middle of the day, when the ground 

 was heated, each village often appeared to the French army, during the 

 campaign in that country, as if surrounded to the distance of a league 

 by a lake, in which, underneath the village, a distinct reversed image of 

 if was represented. This illusion is altogether so perfect, and so 

 strong, that, in our own case, after repeated experience, we always 

 in the first instance took the Siraub for real water, unless, when from 

 local knowledge, or the circumstances of the place, we knew its existence 

 to be impossible or unlikely." 



This phenomena is not confined to the land. It is more frequently 



