their foreheads--to say nothing of the noble, gigantic, sacred camel,
decked with cloth of gold and silk, his bridle studded with jewels and
gold, led by two sheiks in green, with the ark or chapel containing
the Koran written in letters of gold,--forms a dazzling contrast
to the spectacle it not unfrequently presents before its mission is
fulfilled. Numbers of these gaily caparisoned creatures drop and die
miserably, and when the pilgrimage leaves Mecca the air is too often
tainted with the effluvia reeking from the bodies of the camels that
have sunk under the exhausting fatigue of the march. After he had
passed the Akaba, near the head of the Red Sea, the whitened bones
of the dead camels were the land-marks which guided the pilgrim
through the sand-wastes, as he was led on by the alternate hope
and disappointment of the mirage, or "serab," as the Arabs term it.
Burckhardt describes this phenomenon as seen by him when they were
surrounded during a whole day's march by phantom lakes. The color was
of the purest assure,--so clear, that the shadows of the mountains
which bordered the horizon were reflected with extreme precision; and
the delusion of its being a sheet of water was thus rendered perfect.
He had often seen the mirage in Syria and Egypt: there he always found
it of a whitish color, like morning mist, seldom lying steadily on the
plain, almost continually vibrating; but in the case above described
the appearance was very different, and bore the most complete
resemblance to water. This exact similitude the traveler attributes to
the great dryness of the air and earth in the desert where he beheld
it. There, too the appearance of water approached much nearer than in
Syria and Egypt, being often not more than two hundred paces from the
beholders, whereas he had never seen it before at a distance of less
than half-a-mile.--_Fraser, June._

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