Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1884-07-10
&eading.
THE GREAT DESERT.

A traveller who has journeyed across the
great Sahara desert in Africa, thus describes
in the New Orleans Times the terrible scenes
that he witnessed: Riding five hundred
meters in advance of our little troop, the
horseman who acts as guide directs our way
For the last ten minutes he kept his horse
at walk, sitting motionleSs in his saddle,
and singing in his own tongue melancholy,
long-drawn chant, with singularities of ORR
entail rhyme. We initiate his pace. Then
all of sudden he starts off at a atrot, stand
ing in his stirrups erect, with his great
burnous floating hehind him. And we all
trot after him, until he draws rein again to
re-commence gentler pace.
/ ask my comrade:
"HoW can he guide us through these ma
ked wastes without single mark to show
the way ?'
But he answered:
"There are only the bones of camelS."
And in fact, every quarter of an hour, we
came across some enormous bone gnaWed
by beasts, cooked by the sun-all white, in
strong relief against the sand. Sometimes
it was part of q leg, sometimes part of ajaW,
sometimes portion of the vertebral COL
umn. The caravans leave behind them ev-
cry animal that cannot keep up and the
ackals do not carry all the remains away.
And for several days we continued this
monotonous voyage, always in the saddle,
always behind the same Arab, almost with
out speaking.
ing BOu-Saada, saw, afar off, before us, a
great dark mass, made larger by the mir
iage, the form Of which astonished me. At
our approach two vultures flew away. 1t
was a carcass, still Shiny in spite of the
heat-glossy as though varnished, with
putrid blood. The chest alone remained ;
the limbs had doubtless been torn off and
carried away by the voracious devourers OF
the dead.
"Ah" There are travellers ahead of us"
said the lieutenant.
Some hours later we entered ravine, a
sort of defile, a frightful furnace, bordered
| by huge rocks toothed like saw-sharp,
pointed, ragged, rabid, in revolt, as it were
against the implacably ferocious sky. An
other corpse was lying there. And jackal
that had been devouring it fled away.
Then, as we passed out of the ravine, a
gray heap of something before us moved
and slowly, at the end of disproportion-
ately long neck, I saw the head of an agon-
| izing camel rise up. He was lying there
had been lying for three or four days, per-
haps-on his side, dying of fatigue and
thirst. His long members, that seemed
inert, broken, all mixed up together, were
stretched upon the fiery soil. And, hearing
us coming, he had lifted up his head, like a
| lighthouse. His forehead, already gnawed
by the sun, was but one Wound-a great
running sore and his'resigned gaze follow
ed us. He did not utter mOan-did not
make the least effort to rise. One would
have thought, that as he had seen so many
of his brothers die in their long voyages
| through desOlatiOn, he knew too we'll the
mercilessness of man. Now it was his
turn-that was all And we passed on.
But when looked back long, long time
afterward, saw still rising up from the
sand the lofty neck of the abandoned beast,
watching to the end the last living creatures
he could ever behold, passing beyond the
horizon.
An hour later it was dog, crouching
close to rock, with jaws wide open and
fangs glittering ng-incapable of moving a
paW-With eyes fixed upon two vultures
who sat not far off, pluming themselves
while waiting for his death. He was so
possessed with terror of those terribly, pa
tient birds, waiting for his flesh, that he
never turned his head, and did not even
feel the stones that a saphi flung at him.
And, suddenly, at the outlet of another
defile, saw the oasis before me.
It was an apparition never to be forgot
ten. One has traversed endless plains,
climbed mountains all craggy, bald, cal
cined, without ever seeing tree, a plant, a
single green leaf; and 10 fright before
you, at your very feet, is an opaque mass of
sombre verdure--as it were, a lake OF TO-
liage extending upon the sand. Then, fur
ther on, the desert recOmmences, lengthen-
ing infinitely to the indefinable horizon
where it mixes with the sky