Sunset.-The enemy sinks behind the deep cerulean sea, under a canopy of gigantic rainbow which covers half the face of heaven.  Nearest to the horizon is an arch of tawny orange; above it another of the brightest gold, and based upon these a semi-circle of tender sea-green blends with a score of delicate gradations into the sapphire sky.  Across the rainbow the sun throws its rays in the form of giant wheel-spokes tinged with a beautiful pink.  The Eastern sky is mantled with a purple flush that picks out the forms of the hazy Desert and the sharp-cut Hills.  Language is a thing too cold, too poor, to express the harmony and the majesty of this hour, which is as evanescent, however, as it is lovely.  Night falls rapidly, when suddenly the appearance of the Zodiacal Light[FN#2] restores

[p.209] the scene to what it was.  Again the grey hills and the grim rocks become rosy or golden, the palms green, the sands saffron, and the sea wears a lilac surface of dimpling waves.  But after a quarter of an hour all fades once more; the cliffs are naked and ghastly under the moon, whose light falling upon this wilderness of white crags and pinnacles is most strange-most mysterious.

Night.-The horizon is all darkness, and the sea reflects the white visage of the night-sun as in a mirror of steel.  In the air we see giant columns of pallid light, distinct, based upon the indigo-coloured waves, and standing with their heads lost in endless space.  The stars glitter with exceeding brilliance.[FN#3] At this hour are

“-river and hill and wood, With all the numberless goings on of life, Inaudible as dreams”;

while the planets look down upon you with the faces of smiling friends.  You feel the “sweet influence of the Pleiades.”  You are bound by the “bond of Orion.”  Hesperus bears with him a thousand things.  In communion with them your hours pass swiftly by, till the heavy dews warn you to cover up your face and sleep.  And with one look at a certain little Star in the north, under which lies all that makes life worth living through-surely it is a venial superstition to sleep with your eyes towards that Kiblah!-you fall into oblivion.

Those thirty-six hours were a trial even to the hard-headed Badawin.  The Syrian and his two friends fell ill.  Omar Effendi, it is true, had the courage to say his

[p.210] sunset prayers, but the exertion so altered him that he looked another man.  Salih Shakkar in despair ate dates till threatened with a dysentery.  Sa’ad the Demon had rigged out for himself a cot three feet long, which, arched over with bent bamboo, and covered with cloaks, he had slung on to the larboard side; but the loud grumbling which proceeded from his nest proved that his precaution had not been a cure.  Even the boy Mohammed forgot to chatter, to scold, to smoke, and to make himself generally disagreeable.  The Turkish baby appeared to be dying, and was not strong enough to wail.  How