120 THE MOLOCH OF THE DESERT. 



" A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 

 As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

 By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! " * 



Yet the spectacle is generally one of a rare and peculiar loveli- 

 ness. " If nature," says M. Tr&naux,f " had invested with this kind 

 of beauty our verdurous fields of the West, they would have been 

 veritable Edens ; but to produce, blend, and harmonize these inimi- 

 table hues, it requires, under the last beams of the sun, the emana- 

 tions from the heated sands and those which the day has called into 

 existence from the burning surfaces of the denuded rocks. It is by 

 the side of her greatest horrors nature places her grandest beauties." 



The horror of the Desert does not lie only in its aridity, in its 

 vacuity this vacuity is not absolute ; in default of life, Death 

 peoples its solitudes. The glens or gorges frequented by the caravans 

 are lined with stones, symmetrically disposed at certain intervals. 

 These stones mark the places where rest the remains of the hapless 

 pilgrims who have attempted to cross the wilderness, and perished in 

 the attempt. Round and about each rugged tomb lie the skeletons 

 of animals which none have troubled themselves to bury in the 

 sand. Frequently you may see, on the sandy wastes of Africa, or the 

 desolate plains of Asia and the New World, these carcasses laid out 

 in two interminable rows ; indicating the gloomy track which should 

 be followed by the traveller, and never failing to remind him of the 

 tribute Death levies upon mankind in these accursed regions. Thus 

 does the Desert show itself more relentless than even the hungry 

 ocean, which at least devours its victims whole, and affronts the eye 

 with no traces of its murders. But the Moloch of the Desert has no 

 shame ; it cynically exposes the hideous remains of those whom it 

 has killed ; it strews the earth with their bones ; it has its museums 

 of skeletons, or rather of preserved animals. 



M. Tremaux observed this curious phenomenon in the ravines of 

 Korosko, but it probably occurs elsewhere under similar conditions. 



* Coleridge, " Poetical Works "Kubla Khan. 



f Treinaux, " Egypte et Ethiopie," l re partie, c. viL 



