182 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

without awe. The richness of this coloring made the Desert beautiful ; it was too brilliant for desolation. The scenery, so far from depressing, inspired and exhilarated me. I never felt the sensation of physical health and strength in such perfection, and was ready to shout from morning till night, from the overflow of happy spirits. The air is an elixir of life — as sweet and pure and refreshing as that which the first Man breathed, on the morning of Creation. You inhale the unadulterated elements of the atmosphere, for there are no exhalations from moist earth, vegetable matter, or the smokes and steams which arise from the abodes of men, to stain its purity.

This air, even more than its silence and solitude, is the secret of one's attachment to the Desert. It is a beautiful illustration of the compensating care of that Providence, which leaves none of the waste places of the earth without some atoning glory. Where all the pleasant aspects of Nature are wanting — where there is no green thing, no fount for the thirsty lip, scarcely the shadow of a rock to shield the wanderer in the blazing noon — Glod has breathed upon the wilderness his sweetest and tenderest breath, giving clearness to the eye, strength to the frame, and the most joyous exhilaration to the spirits.

Achmet always insisted on my taking a sabre as a-protection against the hyenas, but I was never so fortunate as to see more than their tracks, which crossed the path at every step.

I saw occasionally the footprints of ostriches, but they, as well as the giraffe, are scarce in this Desert. Towards noon, Achmet and I made a halt in the shadow of a rock, or if no rock was at hand, on the bare sand, and took our breakfast. One's daily bread is never sweeter than in the Desert. The rest of