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Show STEPPES AND DESERTS. 37 with cold, so here, under the influence of the parching drought, the crocodile and the boa become motionless and fall asleep, deeply buried in the dry mud. Everywhere the death-threatening drought prevails, and yet, by the play of the refracted rays of light producing the phenomenon of the mirage, the thirsty traveller is everywhere pur ued by the illusive image of a cool, rippling, watery mirror. (86) The distant palm bush, apparently raised by the influence of the contact of unequally heated, and therefore unequally dense, strata of air, hovers above the ground, from which it is separated by a narrow, intervening margin. Half concealed by the dark clouds of dust, restless with the pain of thirst and hunger, the horses and cattle roam around, the cattle lowing dismally, and the horses stretching out their long necks and snuffing the wind, if haply a moister current may betray the neighborhood of a not wholly dried up pool. More sagacious and cunning, the mule seeks a different mode of alleviating his thirst. The ribbed and spherical melon-cactus (37) conceals under its prickly envelope a watery pith. The mule first strikes the prickles aside with his fore feet, and then ventures warily to approach his lips to the plant and drink the cool juice. But resort to this vegetable fountain is not always without danger, and one sees many animals that have been lamed by the prickles of the cactus. When the burning heat of the day is followed by the coolness of the night, which in these latitudes is always of the same length1 even then the horses and cattle cannot enjoy repose. Enormous bats suck their blood like vampires during their sleep, or attach themselves to their backs, causing festering wounds, in which musquitoes, hippobosces, and a host of stinging insects1 niche themselves. Thus the animals lead a painful life during the season when, under the fierce glow of the sun, the soil is deprived of its moisture. At length, after the long drought1 the welcome season of the rain arrives; and then how suddenly is the scene changed! (33) The deep blue of the hitherto perpetually cloudless sky becomes lighter; at night the dark space in the constellation of the Southern Cross is hardly distinguishable; the soft, phosphorescent light of the Magellanic clouds fades away; even the stars in Aquila and Ophiucus in the zenith shine with a trembling and less planetary light. A single cloud appears in the south1 like a distant mountain1 rising perpendicularly 4 |
