370 
APPROACH TO THE DESERT. 
own stomach, nor thinks fit to consign to the more capacious 
swallow of his courtiers. 
Next morning, May 14th, we started soon after sun-rise; that 
we might not pass as many hours as we had done the preceding 
day, under his most roasting beams, before we should reach the 
regular halting-place. The air now was comparatively cool, 
and for a space of about two farsangs, the country appeared 
green and cheerful, enjoying a pretty fair cultivation from the 
happy influence of numberless brilliant little rivulets, which 
intersected this upland plain like fairy rills. But after two 
hours’ ride over the fresh sward, we suddenly lost sight of all 
this verdure, by only making a transition from heighth to depth, 
which carried us down upon a dun and drowthy vale, 
without a blade of grass; that barren glen conducted us to 
another ; and so on, descending through a succession of similar 
parched wastes, bedded with sand, and following each other like 
a chain of dryed-up lakes. Not a plant was to be seen any¬ 
where, notwithstanding the spring-rains had been unusually 
heavy. However, they had done us the service of giving a 
temporary consolidation to the sand; otherwise, the wind being 
very brisk when we crossed these valleys, the light particles, if 
blown in our faces, would have annoyed us grievously. The same 
character of country lay before us, till we came to a consider¬ 
able stream, flowing to the north-west, and so copiously that with 
difficulty we forded it; tantalized all the while with finding so 
desirable a mass of waters, salt as brine. From thence we 
began an ascent over a range of stony hills, rising in rough 
united heaps from the uneven surface of the arid vale we had 
just traversed, and stretching several miles towards the east and 
west; appearing more like some gigantic dyke in the way, than 
