There were but two features in the landscape on which to fix the eye,
and these were infrequent--the dusty beds of the dead rivers and the
wind-sculptured rocks. It was the abomination of desolation: the air
was thin, but spicy; the sky was bare. When we had followed with eager
glance the shadow-like gazelle in his bounding flight, and brought the
heavy-headed buffalo to a momentary stand, with his small evil eye
fixed upon us, he wheeled suddenly and disappeared in a cloud of dust;
and we were alone in the desert.
Those mellow hours by the inland sea, where sits the Garden City, with
its wide grass-grown streets and its vine-veiled cottages basking in
summer sunshine, were precious indeed! We had ample opportunity for
developing philosophy, sentiment and politics at one sitting. Coming
out of the fair and foul refuge of the fleshly saints, I thought of
the wisdom of the French poet who once said to me, "Oui, monsieur:
life is an oasis in which there is many a desert." In the unfruitful
shoots of those thorn-bearing vines and withered fig trees I learned
the burden of the desert: Though it blossom as the rose, if it yield
not honey it shall be laid waste; though it deck itself with beauty,
though it sing with the voice of the charmer, its fairness is a mock
and its song is the song of the harlot.
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