The Voice of the South

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1905 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIII. AN UNEXPECTED STORM. The afternoon was overcast. Before we reached the oasis of Maghier, our destination for the night, a bank of clouds rising from the north had effectually blotted out the sunshine. At first the novelty of this grey canopy pleased the eyes. It was more restful than the luminous vault that had for so long stretched above us. But any sensations of relief were more than counterbalanced by the depression that fell from the drifting sadness overhead. The great spaces over which we passed were so essentially the home of sunlight, that to see them thus was to be conscious only of their desolation. It was to forget their beauty. It was as if one wandered through familiar rooms, seeking a face, but finding only silence and abandonment. I doubt if this aspect of the desert would have struck me thus forcibly had I not become conscious of a growing indisposition. My head ached violently and my body burned with fever. It was but a touch of the sun, still it was powerful enough to colour surrounding nature for me with the sombre tints of my own feelings. Never before had I seen the desert in a more sinister light. It lay before, behind, and around us, a great lifeless thing, without colour, without form--a nothingness, abandoned of man, forsaken of God. Its lines blurred as they receded into shades of dull. leaden grey. Afar off, the sight knew not where, they mingled with the inexpressible desolation of the sky. This leaden pall stretched everywhere. Here and there it darkened into patches of formless obscurity, as the desert rose and fell. These patches had the appearance of phantoms lurking in the night. In the west there was a slight lifting of this darkness, where the sun, on the point of sinking, struggled with the clouds. The sile...