A FAIRY LANDSCAPE. 119 



" Round the decay 



Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 

 The lone and level sands stretch far away." 



Everywhere outside the valley of the Nile, I repeat, lies the Desert. 

 West of the Arabian chain of heights stretch the vast sandy plains 

 frequented by the Arab tribes of the Beni-Wassel and the Arabdd 

 Beyond the eastern chain spread the Libyan Deserts, which, in the 

 remote distance, merge into the Great Sahara, and those of the 

 Theba'id, where the early Christian anchorites found a dismal 

 asylum. Lower, to the south of Egypt, extend the Deserts of Lower 

 Nubia. 



Let us ascend the Nile as far as Korosko, on the right bank of 

 the river, and cross the huge chain of rocky hills which separates the 

 cultivated zone from the Desert to which the village just spoken of 

 gives name. These hills, all of equal elevation, assume the form of 

 truncated cones. They are layers of granite superimposed horizontally, 

 and with a depth of colour which makes them resemble at the first 

 glance masses of basalt. They are absolutely bare, and separated 

 from each other by abrupt sinuous gorges, whose bottom is covered 

 deep in sand of golden liglits, brought from the desert on the wings 

 of the south-west. Long streams of the same brilliant sand descend 

 the slopes opposed to the direction of the wind with graceful undula- 

 tions, which subside imperceptibly in the blown sand that carpets 

 the floor of these mysterious valleys. The crests of the hills can 

 only be distinguished by their different colours ; some are lightly 

 shaded with gray, others with blue or green, and others again with 

 rose or crimson. The reflets of the setting sun on these uniform and 

 many-coloured summits have a marvellous splendour, lighting up the 

 scene until it assumes a fairy aspect, 



" And all puts on a gentle hue. 

 Hanging in the shadowy air, 

 Like a picture rich and rare." 



At certain times it would rather remind the spectator of another 

 of Coleridge's conceptions : 



