22 THE BLACK COUNTRY. 



dream, exhibits lakes of transparent water and shady- 

 trees. But the wells of this desert are scanty, and 

 the waters found in them are salt. 



The fugitives concealed the images of the gods, and 

 taking with them the sacred animals, embarked upon 

 their voyage of suffering and woe. After many weary 

 days they again sighted land : they arrived on the 

 shores of Ethiopia, the country of the blacks. Once 

 more their eyes were refreshed with green pastures ; 

 once more they listened to the rustling of the palms, 

 and drank the sweet waters of the Nile. Yet soon 

 they discovered that it was not their own dear river, 

 it was not their own beloved land. In Egypt nature 

 was a gentle handmaid ; here she was a cruel and 

 capricious queen. The sky flashed and bellowed 

 against them ; the rain fell in torrents, and battered 

 down the houses of the Ethiopians, wretched huts 

 like hay-ricks, round in body with a cone-shaped roof, 

 built of grass and mud. The lowlands changed be- 

 neath the flood, not into meadows of flowers and fields 

 of waving corn, but into a pestilential morass. At the 

 rising of the dog-star came a terrible fly which drove 

 even the wild beasts from the river banks and de- 

 stroyed all flocks and herds. At that evil season the 

 Egyptian colonists were forced to migrate to the 

 forests of the interior, which were filled with savage 

 tribes. Here were the Troglodytes who lived under 

 ground ; an ointment was their only dress ; their 

 language resembled the hissing of serpents and the 

 whistling of bats. Every month they indulged in a 

 carouse ; every month they opened the veins of their 

 sheep and drank of the warm and gurgling blood as 

 if it had been delicious wine. They made merry 

 when they buried their dead, and, roaring with 



