Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1884-06-25
The Great Desert.

A traveller who has Journeyed
across the great Sahara desert in
Africa, thus describes in the New Or
leans Times the terrible scenes that he
witnessed: Riding five hundred me-
tres in advance of our little troop, the
horseman who acts as guide directs
our way over the dead level of the dis
NAL solitude For the last ten minutes
he kept his horse at a walk, sitting
motionless in his saddle, and singing
in his own tongue a melancholy, long
drawn chant, with singularities of Ori-
entail rhyme. We initiate his pace.
Then allSf a sudden he starts of at a
trot, standing in his stirrups erect.
with his great burnous floating behind
him. And we all trot after him, until
he draws rein again to recommence a
gentler pace.
| asked my comrade:
"How can he guide us through
these naked wastes without a single
mark to show the way?"
But he answered.
"There are only the bones of cam
els"
And in TACT 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 leg,
sometimes part of a jaw, sometimes a
portion of the vertebral column. The
caravans leave behind them every
animal that cannot keep up; and the
jackals 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 without speaking.
Now, one afternoon, as we were ap-
preaching Bou-Saada, saw, afar off,
before us, great dark mass, made
larger by the mirage,-the form of
| which astonished me. At our ap-
proach two vultures few away. 1t
was carcass, still Shiny in spite of the
heat,-glossy as though vanished,
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
usl" said the lieutenant.
Some hours later we entered ra-
vine, sort of defle, a frightful fur
mace, bordered by huge rocks toothed
like a saw-sharp, pointed, ragged,
in revolt, as it were against the i'm
placably ferocious sky. Another 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 NOV
ed, and slowly, at the end of dispro-
portionately long neck, | saw the head
of an agonizing camel rise up. He
was lying for three or four days, per-
haps-on his side, dying of fatigue and
thirst. His long members that seem
ed inert, broken, all mixed up together,
were stretched upon the fiery soil.
And, hearing US coming, he had lifted
up his head like lighthouse. His
forehead, already gnawed by the sun,
was but one wound-a great running
sore; and his resigned gaze followed
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,
be knew too well the mercilessness of
man. Now it was his turn-that was
all! And we passed on.
But when / looked back a long, long
time aCterward, / saw still rising from
the sand the lofty neck of the abandon
| ed beast, watching to the end the last
living creatures he could ever behold,
assing beyond the horizon.
| An hour later it was dog, crouch
ing close to a rock, with jaws wide
open and fangs gitterng-incapable
of moving paw-with eyes fixed upon
two vultures who sat not far of, plum
ing themselves while waiting for his
death. He was so possessed with ter
ror of those terrible patient birds, wait
| ing for his flesh but he never turned
his head, and did not even feel the
stones that saphi flung at him.
And, suddenly at the outlet of an
other defile ! saw the oasis before me.
1t was an apparation never to be
forgotten. One has traversed endless
plains, climbed mountains all craggy,
bald, calcined, without ever seeing
tree, plant, a single green leaf; and
lo!-right before you, at your very
feet, is an opaque mass of sombre yen-
dure-as it were, lake of foliage ex-
tending upon the sand. Then, further
on. the desert recommences, lengthen-
ing infinitely to the indefnable horizon
where it mixes with the sky.
| Why is girl who takes out fond
lings to ride in a baby carriage like a
traveller? Because she is waif-airer.