"
"Ah! wind! wind!" exclaimed Joe; "enough to
carry us to a stream or a well, and we'll be all right.
We have provisions enough, and, with water, we could
wait a month without suffering; but thirst is a cruel
thing!"
It was not thirst alone, but the unchanging sight of the
desert, that fatigued the mind. There was not a variation
in the surface of the soil, not a hillock of sand, not a
pebble, to relieve the gaze. This unbroken level discouraged
the beholder, and gave him that kind of malady
called the "desert-sickness." The impassible monotony
of the arid blue sky, and the vast yellow expanse of the
desert-sand, at length produced a sensation of terror. In
this inflamed atmosphere the heat appeared to vibrate
as it does above a blazing hearth, while the mind grew
desperate in contemplating the limitless calm, and could
see no reason why the thing should ever end, since immensity
is a species of eternity.
Thus, at last, our hapless travellers, deprived of water
in this torrid heat, began to feel symptoms of mental disorder.
Their eyes swelled in their sockets, and their gaze
became confused.
When night came on, the doctor determined to combat
this alarming tendency by rapid walking. His idea
was to pace the sandy plain for a few hours, not in search
of any thing, but simply for exercise.
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