THE EARTIT FRAME 
203 
Menes knew ; it at least has remained quite un- 
disturbed. The traveller may strike off from 
the Nile and ride—ride west for days without a 
change. There is with him always the glaring 
sunlight, the sand and rock, the torn and ragged 
wady, the star-like glance of hght from quartz 
and mica, and overhead the rose-hued sky. 
Nothing but barren waste below and burning 
heat above. The two-expanses circle and en- 
close him as he stands upon his central point of 
sun-fire. One may ride on for hundreds of 
miles and still there isno change. The opal flash 
of sands, the glaring rocks, and the trembling, 
heated atmosphere—that is all. How silent 
and motionless the vast desert! Simoons may 
blow and drift the sands hither and thither, but 
the general appearance does not alter. It never 
alters. The desert steeds of the Pharaohs per- 
ished in these wastes ages ago, as yesterday the 
caravan of the Mecca pilgrims. The Sphinx 
with its face to the sun and its back to the 
desert, has felt the far-travelling waves of sand 
lapping its shoulders through no one knows how 
many centuries of desolation, but the sands 
were there before ever it was carved. Will 
they always remain as now? Who knows 
what changes the engines of civilization may 
The change- 
less desert. 
The sands 
of Sahara. 
