Shades of St. Francis of Assisi! Umbrian hills, so pure under the
rising sun! It was in the light of a like sunrise, by the border of a
pale stream leaping in full cascades from a crescent-shaped niche of
the gray rocks of Egere, that Morhange stopped. The unlooked for
waters rolled upon the sand, and we saw, in the light which mirrored
them, little black fish. Fish in the middle of the Sahara! All three
of us were mute before this paradox of Nature. One of them had strayed
into a little channel of sand. He had to stay there, struggling in
vain, his little white belly exposed to the air.... Morhange picked
him up, looked at him for a moment, and put him back into the little
stream. Shades of St. Francis. Umbrian hills.... But I have sworn not
to break the thread of the story by these untimely digressions.
* * * * * "
You see," Captain Morhange said to me a week later, "that I was right
in advising you to go farther south before making for Shikh-Salah.
Something told me that this highland of Egere was not interesting from
your point of view. While here you have only to stoop to pick up
pebbles which will allow you to establish the volcanic origin of this
region much more certainly than Bou-Derba, des Cloizeaux, and Doctor
Marrés have done."
This was while we were following the western pass of the Tidifest
Mountains, about the 25th degree of northern latitude.
"I should indeed be ungrateful not to thank you," I said.
I shall always remember that instant. We had left our camels and were
collecting fragments of the most characteristic rocks. Morhange
employed himself with a discernment which spoke worlds for his
knowledge of geology, a science he had often professed complete
ignorance of.
Then I asked him the following question: "May I prove my gratitude by making you a confession?"
He raised his head and looked at me.
"Well then, I don't see the practical value of this trip you have
undertaken."
He smiled.
"Why not? To explore the old caravan route, to demonstrate that a
connection has existed from the most ancient times between the
Mediterranean world, and the country of the Blacks, that seems nothing
in your eyes? The hope of settling once for all the secular disputes
which have divided so many keen minds; d'Anville, Heeren, Berlioux,
Quatremere on the one hand,--on the other Gosselin, Walckenaer,
Tissit, Vivien, de saint-Martin; you think that that is devoid of
interest? A plague upon you for being hard to please."
"I spoke of practical value," I said. "You won't deny that this
controversy is only the affair of cabinet geographers and office
explorers."