The Sahara lay beyond and around it,
rolling away from the foot of low, brown hills, that looked as if
they had been covered with a soft powder of bronze. A long spur of
rose-coloured mountains stretched away towards the south. The sun was
very near his setting. Small, red clouds floated in the western quarter
of the sky, and the far desert was becoming mysteriously dim and blue,
like a remote sea. Here and there thin wreaths of smoke ascended from
it, and lights glittered in it, like earth-bound stars.
Domini had never before understood how strangely, how strenuously,
colour can at moments appeal to the imagination. In this pageant of the
East she saw arise the naked soul of Africa; no faded, gentle thing,
fearful of being seen, fearful of being known and understood; but a
phenomenon vital, bold and gorgeous, like the sound of a trumpet pealing
a great _reveille_. As she looked on this flaming land laid fearlessly
bare before her, disdaining the clothing of grass, plant and flower, of
stream and tree, displaying itself with an almost brazen _insouciance_,
confident in its spacious power, and in its golden pride, her heart
leaped up as if in answer to a deliberate appeal.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67