Not a vestige of any green thing could be seen within our range of
vision. No bird was flying, and the silence was so like the silence
of the tomb that I did not dare to speak aloud while calling mother's
attention to this thing or that, when we halted for a short time.
This was the last stop we would make, save in case of accident. Some of
the animals ate the bread, others refused it, and then I saw what would
have been, under other circumstances, a comical sight, for the men were
going about with wet cloths moistening the mouths of the oxen.
[Illustration]
After spending nearly an hour in making the final preparations, word
was given for the train to set off. Instead of being like milk, we
found that the desert was made up of a bluish clay, covered here and
there in blotches with what was much like salt, and these white spots
were so large and numerous as to give to the whole the appearance of
milky white when seen from the distance.
The oxen sank fetlock-deep, and as we advanced there were times when
they broke through what was like a crust, even to their very knees;
therefore one can well fancy that the wheels plowed into this yielding
surface until it was quite as much as the cattle could do to pull the
wagons along.