Our camp apparatus was quite simple, consisting of a few plates, knives and forks, blankets and rugs, a kitchen-tent, and a pine table; and this outfit formed the nucleus of our nomadic village, not omitting the rough cooking-utensils.  I recall now one of these strange scenes in that distant region, under the cloudless sky, beneath the Southern Cross.  A few feet distant from my canvas chateau was my aged Arab cook, manipulating his coals, his tongs, and preparing the hissing mutton, the savory pigeons and potatoes.  The cook is the most popular man on such an expedition, and is neither to be coaxed nor driven.  The baggage-camels were disposed upon the ground, a few yards distant, eating their grain and uttering those loud, yelping, beseeching sounds—­a compound of an elephant’s trumpet and a lion’s roar—­which were taken up, repeated by the chorus, and re-echoed by the hills.  These patient animals, denuded of their loads and water, the latter having been corded in mats, became quiet only with sleep.  Add to these scenes and uproar the deafening volubility of twenty Arabs and Nubians, each shouting within the true barbaric key, the seven-eighths nudity of the blacks, the elaborate and flashing wear of the upper servants, and the small asperities of this my menial world—­all of these with a refreshing breeze, a clear atmosphere, the air laden with ozone and electric life, the sky inviting the serenest contemplation, with the great moon thrice magnified as it rose, and I recall an evening when I was supremely content.

Piloted by the carcasses of decayed camels, we took up our route in the morning, led by our guide, and soon emerged on the sublimest scenery of the desert.  Our line of travel lay through the center of grand elliptical amphitheaters, which called to mind the Coliseum at Rome and the exhumed arena at Pompeii.  These eroded structures, wrought by the hand of nature at some remote period, were floored over by hard, gravelly sand, inclosed by lofty, semi-circular sides, and vaulted only by the blue sky, and are among the grandest primitive formations I have ever seen.  From the maroon shade of the sand to the dark, craggy appearance of the terraced rocks, there is as much variety as can be found in landscape without verdure and in solitude without civilization.  These amphitheaters are linked together by narrow passages; and so perfect were the formations, that four doorways, breaking the view into quadrants, were often seen.  The view broadened and lengthened day by day, until our journey lay through a plain of billowing sand.  Then the sun grew fierce and intolerable.  The lips began to crack, the eyebrows and mustache were burned to a light blonde, the skin peeled, and the tongue became parched, while the fine sand, ever present in the hot wind, left its deposits in the delicate membranes of the eye.  It is thus that a period of ten hours in the saddle, day after day, under the scorching sun, takes the edge off the romance of travel, and calls to one’s mind the green lawn, the sparkling fountain, and the beauties of a more tolerable zone.