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302 BY DESERT WAYS TO BAGHDAD
we say what we mean and are silent when we have
nothing to say. We are in surroundings where to
say what you mean is an offence, where silence is
not understood and looked upon askance as an
uncanny visitor. The less we have to say, the
more we make an effort to say it; and the more we
have to say, the greater the effort to suppress it.
Everything seems unreal or unnecessary, every
thing is dressed up.
All these people moving about, sitting still, in a
hurry, catching trains, eating long dinners, dressing
themselves, looking at each other dressed—what
does it all mean ? Was all this going on when we
were in that other world which we have just left,
that great silent world where everything was itself
and big, and not confused by accessories? Was
all this din and bustle going on ? It is strange that
we should have had no inkling of it, for it seems
of so much importance to all these people, idle with
a great restlessness ; it seems essential to them.
It is hard, too, to realise that that other world
still exists out there in the distance, and that it
would be quite possible to reach it by merely riding
out on a camel. Can it indeed be true that the
same sun which lights all these moving streets, these
buyers and sellers, these catchers of trains, is lighting
the desert out there as imperturbably as it lit us,
journeying on after it day after day in the silent
places; did it see all these people from its in
accessible height, and, sharing its gifts equally with
them and with us, give us no hint of what it was
looking down upon ? It showed then no more