Oasis

“ Beyond this palace and all around the groves extend vineyards and olive-groves and orchards of fruit-bearing trees and smiling meadows. It is a veritable oasis in the midst of the desert—an oasis which Philip II. chose to create on a day when he was in good humor, as if to enliven with one cheerful image the black melancholy of the Escurial. ”

“ From miles of distance the eye fastens itself upon the tree tops; the dark green is a break in the landscape, and like the black shadow of clouds it seems to go and come, the gentle undulations of the desert throwing it now and again out of sight. We had penetrated but a moderate distance into the desert, but the coming of the oasis was a relief that can hardly be described—those dense groves of date palms and the circulating streams of water. What must, indeed, the oasis be to those who have wearily plodded its sands for weeks at a time! ”

“ But if to look back is fine, to look forward is to have the magic charm of an oasis revealed to you. The blue river winds amongst the palms,—thousands upon thousands of palms, which bend, sway, and toss their feathery heads as the breeze passes over them. They look green and soft against the wide sweep of sand and stones, the red and yellow rocks of the huge range behind that stretches east and west, and the other mountain range that bounds the horizon with its purples and blues. Such is the first sight of the desert as it appears to the traveller coming through that majestic gate. ”

“ Any one who has not travelled himself for weeks together through the desert can scarcely conceive what it is to come at length to an oasis. An oasis is to the desert wanderer what a peaceful island with its sheltered anchorage is to mariners. Oases are like stars in the dark vault of heaven, like moments of happiness and prosperity in a man's life. If you had roamed for two months in the wilderness, like myself and my Persians, you would be able to understand our feelings when we at last saw the date-palms of Tebbes beckoning to us in the distance (see map, p. 73) . ”

“ It is not the oasis in the foreground of the desert, but the infinite level and roomy horizon, where the sky meets the sand, and into which leads the path of the pilgrim, that detains the eye and the imagination. ”

“ Every oasis is revisited, every association recalled, and then with a rapid flight she returns to the body that grows ever more and more weary, and like the humming of a bee, like the song of a bird, like the murmur of a stream, tells the tale of all that she has seen. ”

“ The outer portions of the oasis are less thickly grown over with palms, but the line between the desert sand and the alluvial soil and irrigated oasis is clearly defined. One walks out of a green field of palm-trees ankle-deep into soft yellow sand, and one’s vision stretches away over undulating white hills the very glare of which is painful to the sight. Here and there throughout the oasis are large open spaces, usually for the purpose of drying the dates in, and now and again for local markets, or sôks. ”

“ And yet the hot sand of the desert, and the cool of the night, and the occasional patch of miserable, languishing green, with the little kindly spring in the camel-trodden oasis, seemed all so delightful in the past life that one was quite content, never suspecting the existence of better things. ”

“ The most striking contrast of landscape scenery that nature brings near together in time or place, is that between the greenery of the tropics, or of a northern summer, and the snowy pall of leafless winter. Next to this in startling novelty of effect, we must rank the sudden transition from the shady and verdant oasis of the desert to the bare and burning party-colored ocean of sand and rock which surrounds it. ”

“ I have been hardened and roughened in the school of life, but I am like a traveller who has trodden tracts of desolation and dreariness and has suddenly found an oasis in the desert, with such a cluster of pure and sweet-scented blossoms growing there that long after he has left it the scent and refreshment and delight of that moment remains with him still. ”

“ To those who still conceive an oasis to be a gathering of a mere hundred or so of palm trees, protecting in its shade a basin of water that is hardly sufficient to quench the thirst of a few dismal-looking men and animals that may have straggled to it, the impression produced by the oasis of El-Kantara will be a pleasantly and refreshingly disappointing one. ”

“ Oasis after oasis dropped from us on the left and the right, and in the late afternoon we were climbing a sharp rise through the deepest sand we had yet encountered, so that we all got out and walked to relieve the horses, and ourselves toiled up the slope; and soon from the ridge we saw a broad panorama like that of the day before; but instead of that salt desolation, here the eye surveyed an endless lowland through which ahead ran a long, dark cluster of oases, one beyond another, like an archipelago ”

“ We never enough prize thy happy-heartedness, thy warm affections, thy warm-springing feelings, until their freshness and bloom have departed. Truly it is an oasis in the desert—a spot all bright, and green, and blooming! ”

“ Then the sole hope for man is to fall upon his face; the sky rains bullets. Then appears the ministry of the rocks. They stay the drifting sand. To the yellow sea they say: "Thus far, but no farther." Desolation is held back. Soon the land under the lee of the rocks becomes rich. It is fed by springs that seep out of the cliffs. It becomes a veritable oasis with figs and olives and vineyards and aromatic shrubs. Here dwell the sheik and his flocks. Hither come the caravans seeking refreshment. In all the Orient no spot so beautiful as the oasis under the shadow of the rocks. ”

“ In a few months' time the oasis would present a spectacle far worse than if it had never been meddled with, and at every hundred yards or oftener the dog-cart would have to make a fresh track for itself amongst the trees that grew alongside the so-called thoroughfare. ”

“ The cheer of a green oasis is, indeed, one of its first greetings, and long before the great flat expanse of sand is reached the traveler approaching from the north looks down upon an island of emerald verdure. ”

“ A peculiarity of the land is the entire absence of woods and forests; hence also the absence of wild beasts, only hyenas, jackals, and wolves being found. Here and there, at long intervals, an oasis was observed like a smile breaking over the arid face of nature upon which a settled gloom rested nearly all the while. ”

“ In this wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed, and planted ground, where corn ripens, and trees afford a shade, although surrounded by sea-mews and rough-woolled sheep. ”

“ In many a little glade along this delightful oasis we saw paauw in flocks of twenty or more, stalking about just like turkeys, and, given water—which is never wanting if sunk for—there are few pleasanter places than this ancient river-bed. A feature of the landscape was the extraordinary number of dead, bare trees still standing, and showing that the water, which sinks deeper in the sand every year, [Page 278] no longer reaches their roots. ”

“ The essential condition for the formation of an oasis is a basin-like or valley-like depression. Without a gushing spring, without at least an artificial well, rich vegetation is impossible, and water is found in the desert only on the lofty mountains or in the deepest hollows. As the sea of sand is in so many respects the counterpart of the ocean, so its oases are counterparts of islands, but they do not rise above the surface, they are sunk beneath it. ”

“ The oasis, generally suggestive of shady groves and purling streams, is often, in reality, nothing more than the dry bed of a mountain torrent, along whose borders a little withered vegetation furnishes the hardy camel with pasture, and where a scanty supply of brackish water can, by laborious digging, be obtained. ”

“ When a traveller, after crossing the broad monotonous plateau, at length reaches the scarp or wall of the oasis, and sees spread out before him a vast [47] depression, stretching in some directions as far as the eye can reach, in others to the opposite bounding walls dimly discernible on the far horizon, he can hardly refrain from speculating as to the causes which have given rise to such huge hollows in the plateau. ”

“ During the forenoon a small oasis is found among some low, shaly hills that give birth to a little stream, and consequent subsistence, to a few families of people; they live together inside a high mud-walled enclosure and cultivate a few small fields of grain. ”

“ The men suit the song to the occasion. The first one that I have translated might be used when an oasis was not far off, the second when the caravan is approaching sand-dune country, the third and fourth when they are nearing a well, and the last when entering a hostile region.
At sunset I make it a point to be near the guide and unobtrusively to check him up with my compass in those uncertain hours before the stars come out. When the dark falls a lantern is lighted and given to the guide. ”

“ An oasis, by the way, does not necessarily consist, as the reading public seems to believe, of a clump of palm-trees beside a brackish well, many of them being great stretches of well-watered and cultivated soil, sometimes many square miles in extent, and rich in fig, pomegranate, orange, apricot, and olive trees. ”

“ According to local tradition, there exists to the south-east another oasis, the Wau-IIarir, a valley clothed with a rich vegetation, and inhabited by a large number of animals, such as moufUons, gazelles, and antelopes, which have not yet learnt to fear man, and allow themselves to be attacked and speared. ”

“ Breathes-in the freshness of the large hill-air,
Basks in the blessed light spread everywhere;
Seems, even, down to gaze,
Far, far down, on the shining waterways,
Wandering ’mid shoals of sand and salty weed,
Of yon wide Estuary....
But eyes can gaze, it takes a mind to see! ”

“ Inshore, a tract of sand-hills borders on the beach. Here and there a lagoon, more or less brackish, attracts the birds and hunters. A rough, undergrowth partially conceals the sand. The crouching, hardy live-oaks flourish singly or in thickets—the kind of wood for murderers to crawl among—and here and there the skirts of the forest extend downward from the hills with a floor of turf and long aisles of pine-trees hung with Spaniard’s Beard. ”

“ For the glory of the open space is the live-oaks. These immense spreading trees stand well apart with huge roots that twist along the ground to disappear in the sand, there to send out other roots whose hungry mouths drink up the hidden moisture. ”

“ The lake, the Gothic villa, farm-house and offices, the gardens, orchards, and serpentine walks, conducting through all the varieties of mountain shade, and to the most interesting points of view, indicate a beautiful and peaceful scene; but, if he lifts his eyes, he sees still above him on the north, bold precipices of naked rock, frowning like ancient battlements, and on one of the highest peaks, the tall tower, rising above the trees, and bidding defiance to the storms. ”

“ Here are wells and springs, with little streams flowing in the shade of fig, date palm, and other trees. The people who dwell within these groves beside the cooling waters look out upon the desert as the inhabitants of an [156] island might look upon the boundless sea. Find some of these oases and learn why they are fertile. The people who live in these oases depend upon dates for their living. The dreary journey from the coast to the interior is made to procure quantities of this fruit, which are wanted by the outside world. ”

“ Once outside, there was a clear sky and bright moon looking down, and but for the thought that all in-door comforts were wrecked, and the possibility of a great ocean wave coming up the bed of the lake, and the lofty sand hills tumbling down into the valley, one might have imagined oneself at sea in a bright gale of wind. ”

“ It lay beneath us like a picture, the surface rising in a series of zones from the central sea, which mirrored the serene azure and plume-like vapours of the heavens, through the sweet meadows, and the smiling gardens, to the luxuriant wilderness beyond; and we could plainly see the shadow of the bounding rampart shrink towards the south as the sun mounted higher and higher. ”

“ The trees, which are of magnificent size, are left to grow naturally;—the Isar, which is turned into it, flows in more than one stream with its mountain impetuosity; the lake is gracefully indented and overhung with trees, and presents ever-changing aspects of loveliness as you walk along its banks; there are open, sunny meadows, in which single giant trees or splendid groups of them stand, and walks without end winding under leafy Gothic arches. ”

“ Nothing, however, mars the beauty of the whole—the shining river running through this valley of the dead, the surroundings bright with marble, flowers, and shrubs—only, a sweet garden where the people come and walk in the evening cool, watching the sun sinking over the harbour, and thinking, it may be, of how they too will likewise join those who lie at rest here. ”

“ I was in the midst of a prairie! A world of grass and flowers stretched around me, rising and falling in gentle undulations, as if an enchanter had struck the ocean swell, and it was at rest forever. Acres of wild flowers of every hue glowed around me, and the sun arising from the earth where it touched the horizon, was ‘kissing with golden face the meadows green.’ What a new and wonderous world of beauty! ”