CHAPTER XIV 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE DESERT 
AB ae after day from my workshop on the 
lava peaks with its Doric columns and 
its blue dome, I have looked out over the 
desert fading into the distance. Isolated 
ranges, rising abruptly, divide the plain as by 
so many great stone walls, which are however 
nowhere continuous, affording countless vistas 
through rocky gateways from one desert plain 
or valley into the next and to a remote and 
enchanting horizon beyond. These vistas 
change with the condition of the atmosphere 
so that sometimes a new and beautiful island 
may seem suddenly to have emerged on the 
confines of the opal desert, and again, some 
familiar landmark as suddenly disappears. 
Distances are far greater than those we are 
accustomed to in the East; the perspective is 
marvellous and alluring. Light is more brill- 
iant, more charged with colour, more abund- 
ant than with us. Except on two absolutely 
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