DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5073#0345
THE DESERT.
333
Descending on the other side we were in the Desert,
here narrowed between mountains to a valley of, we
were told, ten miles wide. I need not say that our eyes
were not of the smallest use in judging of any distance
in the Desert; the atmosphere is so clear and so heated
that objects at many miles off may appear quite close to
you, and it is an ever-recurring marvel why one goes on
hours and hours and never seems to approach any nearer
to the objects you have been looking at all the time.
Another deception, which is frequently puzzling, is the
magnifying of distant objects by the heat, so that a few
tamarisk bushes look like a grove of trees, a horse seems
a tall camel, and a camel looks like a walking tower.
The Sheikh had some business to transact at a large
khan which had for some two hours seemed under our
feet, called Kuteifeh, and we had therefore the advan-
tage of an hour and a half's rest on our carpets in the
inner court; he despatched his business and said his
praj^ers in the Mosque, while we ate our luncheon,
which was a sumptuous one, for we had nice cool oranges
and fine raisins bought in the khan. Senan Pacha
built this khan about three centuries ago, a handsome,
solid building, with rows of fine arches : some houses
have gathered round it into a small village, and there
are gardens with pleasant trees, under whose shade we
passed in leaving the place. Our course lay now nearly
due east, and we soon crossed the track to Aleppo and
Horns, which here turns off to the north. Our camels
became very troublesome this afternoon, stopping to
browse on certain aromatic plants which appeared on
the plain, and as you have no particular bridle, and
camels are remarkably self-willed, and reluctant to take
advice in a language they don't understand, you have
to sit still and bear it; but it is a very odd sensation
333
Descending on the other side we were in the Desert,
here narrowed between mountains to a valley of, we
were told, ten miles wide. I need not say that our eyes
were not of the smallest use in judging of any distance
in the Desert; the atmosphere is so clear and so heated
that objects at many miles off may appear quite close to
you, and it is an ever-recurring marvel why one goes on
hours and hours and never seems to approach any nearer
to the objects you have been looking at all the time.
Another deception, which is frequently puzzling, is the
magnifying of distant objects by the heat, so that a few
tamarisk bushes look like a grove of trees, a horse seems
a tall camel, and a camel looks like a walking tower.
The Sheikh had some business to transact at a large
khan which had for some two hours seemed under our
feet, called Kuteifeh, and we had therefore the advan-
tage of an hour and a half's rest on our carpets in the
inner court; he despatched his business and said his
praj^ers in the Mosque, while we ate our luncheon,
which was a sumptuous one, for we had nice cool oranges
and fine raisins bought in the khan. Senan Pacha
built this khan about three centuries ago, a handsome,
solid building, with rows of fine arches : some houses
have gathered round it into a small village, and there
are gardens with pleasant trees, under whose shade we
passed in leaving the place. Our course lay now nearly
due east, and we soon crossed the track to Aleppo and
Horns, which here turns off to the north. Our camels
became very troublesome this afternoon, stopping to
browse on certain aromatic plants which appeared on
the plain, and as you have no particular bridle, and
camels are remarkably self-willed, and reluctant to take
advice in a language they don't understand, you have
to sit still and bear it; but it is a very odd sensation