Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

THE DESERT JOURNEY 157
water appears at all it will be in spite of us. Finally he
won't even answer our eager questions, but keeps a surly
silence, thinking, no doubt, that the sound of our own
nonsense will make us ashamed. Approaching one of
these diggers, tongue hanging out of the head, I was
alarmed to see the faddy old gentleman look up with
terror—or a good imitation of it—and beseeching me
with the sweat of honest toil on his brow to make myself
scarce, or the boots would drive away the water.
" Boots," quoth he, *' are not for desert sands." But the
darkest hour is before the dawn, and the great frosty
chill in our soul is dissipated by a sharp pistol shot,
'* Water !
" his eloquent, unassisted noun scorning the aid
of verb, adjective, or adverb.
Then a man's head peeps up above the top of the
well, and again and again the old Greek *' Eureka !
" rings
out defiance to the desert. Anon comes a song centuries
old, and sung in all Eastern lands, one song, many
variants :
" Spring up, well !
At first the stuff drunk is liquid mud, first cousin to
dirtiest ditch-water of old England, but early visitors to
the well find the sediment eliminated and a fairly clean
drink the residuum. Besides, there is a real rift in this
cloud, and barring colour and consistency this precious
fluid is neither brackish nor bitter— ^why, sand is the finest
filter going. Far better this than the many putrid
African pools one must sample, brimful with tadpoles
and insects as nameless as numberless.