SUNSET IN THE DESERT

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 35

SUNSET IN THE DESERT

HERE once, indeed, the great .waters? lay. And against yonder mountainside, dim in their wrapping of purple Haze as the sun disappears, sea billows once broke: And now, even if the sea itself is absent, something of its vastness and its deep peace remains here in the desert as the shadows fall, writes "M.T.G." in the "Christian Science Monitor." And when the sun goes,' lie goes at the last moment with the same almost unexpected swiftness, the same abruptness, of his descent into the sea where ha falls below the horizon as.if drawn out of sight by some resistless impatient hand.

Moreover, he leaves behind him.here in the desert the same flaming colours as in some tropical sea,-^lhat crimson which turns presently to gold and then to mauve, and finally to the dull gray which is soon lost in the darkness of die'night. The calm that then ensues is the calm of the tropic sea by night, a calm which lies pleasantly and soothirigly upon the heart, seeming: to still the clamorous voices of the day.

The Arabian desert is unlike the Sahara. It resembles more closely the vast stretches of the American Southwest. Nor is it altogether arid; for, as you pass along, you see here anc? there the shepherds with their flocks and herds. There are bits of sustenance scattered about and little bunches of succulent herbage which will suffice for these animals of the Arabian plains hardy as the nomadic people themselves. Yet now, as night comes on, there is no sign of activity anywhere. We are absolutely alone in this, our modern conveyance which overcomes the distance between two ancient cities with incredible speed. Presently the moon comes up over the far eastern mountains, appearing as suddenly as the sun, whose lingering after-colours have not even yet faded, has disappeared. It bathes the desert in a kind of spectral glow; and, as it mounts, the faint furrows which are our only guides become again discernible. The hours pass as our strange journey across the desert by night pursues its swift, smooth' course. And, sooner than we realise, the eastern sky. is breaking into a rosy glow. We have traversed the great desert from eve until dawn, ;along the ancient caravan trail. We have come in. a, new and strange conveyance, a contrivance beyond the furthestflights of fancy of the olden travellers. But otherwise,, even as they,-we are voyagers of tlie great silence..