352 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



of light passing through a medium which is not homogeneous is re- 

 fracted, and thus it is inevitable, since the lower strata of air become 

 expanded by reflection of heat from the glowing sand. No Arab 

 hides his face when he sees a mirage, as fanciful travellers assure 

 their credulous readers; none puts any deep interpretation on the 

 phrase which he likes to use — "the devil's sea". But when the 

 anxiety, distress, enervation, and misery consequent on a sand-storm 

 beset and weaken him, and the mirage appears, then it may become 

 a Fata Morgana, for the abnormally excited imagination forms 

 pictures which are in most perfect harmony with the most urgent 

 desire of the moment — the desire for water and for rest. Even to 

 me, who have observed the mirage hundreds of times, the Fata 

 Morgana appeared once. It was after four-and-twenty hours of 

 torturing thirst that I saw the devil's sea sparkling and gleaming 

 before me. I really thought I saw the sacred Nile and boats with 

 full-bellied sails, palm-groves and woods, and country-houses. But 

 where my abnormal senses perceived a flourishing palm-grove, 

 my equally abnormal comrade saw sailing-boats, and where I 

 fancied I recognized gardens, he saw not less imaginary woodland. 

 And all the deceptive phantasms vanished as soon as we were 

 refreshed with an unexpected draught of water; only the nebulous 

 gray sea remained in sight. 



Perhaps every one who crosses a stretch of desert in the Nile- 

 lands sees the devil's sea; but there is a real and most living desert 

 picture, a sight of which is not granted to all. On the extreme 

 limit of vision, raised perhaps by the mirage and veiled in vapour, 

 a number of riders appear; they are mounted on steeds swift as the 

 wind, with limbs like those of deer; they approach rapidly, and 

 urging to full gallop the steeds which till then they had restrained, 

 they rush down upon the caravan. It always gave me pleasure to 

 meet these haggard, picturesquely-clad men; they and their horses 

 seemed to be so thoroughly harmonious with the desert. The 

 Bedouin is indeed the true son of the desert, and his steed is his 

 counterpart. He is stern and terrible as the desert day, gentle and 

 friendly as the desert night. True to his pledged word, unswerving 

 in obedience to the laws and customs of his race, dignified in 



