the favourite game with noah’s ark was to make the nursery table an island of delight. the delight must have centred in the looking-glasses, which, with frames discreetly hidden in moss, mirrored in their unruffled surfaces forms of numerous ducks and geese and other less decided species of birds. certainly the other furnishings of the island were not particularly delightful, for it was thickly populated with wild beasts of horrid aspect and defective limbs, and specimens of that strange pinkish animal of which noah is so fond, and which may be classified with equal probability as a dingo or a wild boar.
my earliest ideas of an oasis were combined of this island of delight and of the description of elim. the oasis would be round as the nursery table; it would be covered with lush green grass like a water-meadow. it would have about seventy palm-trees standing at fairly regular intervals, and between the palm-trees there would be (instead of the looking-glasses) bubbling springs of water crystal-clear.
when at last i saw an oasis it was unlike my vision—my vision of delight. there was no grass, but there were more palm-trees; there were no crystal fountains, but trickles of brown water in sandy channels. it came up to my ideal in one point only—there was none of that indefiniteness of outline which is so repulsive to the simple mind. even as you can stand on the bridge above mentone, and see a milestone with france on one side and a milestone with italy on the other, so here you could take your stand and say “that on my right hand is desert, and that on my left is oasis.”
we had been travelling all day over the sandy, dusty plains of north africa; we had found little to eat at the shed-like stations except blue cheese and musty bread; and towards evening we entered a rocky defile. at the end of this defile they said were the gates of gold. there was not much to see and the train loitered on.
suddenly we saw at the end of the valley two great escarpments of reddish rock; at their foot leaned one palm-tree, behind was a glimpse of blue hills. the evening sunlight fell golden on the golden gates as we passed through and suddenly cried out, for everywhere below us spread a sea of waving palm-trees. this was the oasis.
the oasis lay on a plain so flat that the horizon to the south curved like the horizon of the sea; and like little clouds resting on the ocean here and there an oasis showed greyish green in the distance. to the north lay a range of hills, which guarded the enchanted place from the world of men. the flatness drew the soul with a strange attraction, until one longed to go out over it farther than eye could reach, anywhere or nowhere. the desert was in sandy ridges like a badly ploughed field; isolated tufts of a heath-like plant grew here and there; often there lay on the ground, as if spilled from a cart, yellow apples, reddening invitingly. evil fruits these are, full of dust and bitterness, and even the camel will not eat them.
but within the oasis were golden oranges, juicy, like no oranges you eat here, for they ripen on the dark, glossy trees; there were gardens of purple fig and yellow citrons large as the head of an arab child; and the dates were sweet and large, and half transparent in their candied clusters.
but the enchanted time was when the moon was high, its silver light was faintly tinged with rose; then one walked under the palm-trees, and light and shadow lay like silver and ebony across the path, interlacing and waving if some faint breeze stirred them, and the strange, sweet odours of the east lay warm and thick, and the tinkle of arab sounds were in our ears, and the slim brown figures moved across the path; and we went back to dream of silver lights and waving, ebon shadows.
and one morning we went away from the oasis, and passed through the gates of gold, and back into the world of men, to find we had been but two days away.
