They were no sooner gone than my camel-men came forward to ask me to be careful through the night. “Those men were robbers,” they declared; “there will be others at hand.” However, a wakeful watchful night passed uneventfully. It may have been that the camp was too well armed, or too alert; in any case, we saw no living soul again.[18] And thereafter we spent some days among the dunes—perhaps the most beautiful and most mystical environment that one may find in the Sahara; and always the colours and shadows of morn and eve were infinite and superb. Nevertheless, the influence of these gigantic scenes of sand sometimes affects the travel-stained imagination; particularly when there is no escape from constant sameness over a prolonged period. A good illustration of how it engrosses and depresses one’s thoughts, even in sleep, is contained in a dream of Glover’s. “I dreamt, last night, that you had received a message from the French saying that your journey had all been a mistake, and that you could not continue across the Sahara. The message went on to say that they were very sorry about the disappointment to you, but if you cared to wait you could continue north _next year_. You answered, ‘All right, we will wait,’ and settled to camp among the awful sand. Then I clearly saw both of us sitting there through an eternity—waiting, always waiting. _And as we sat more and more sand dust covered us!_—until I saw quite six inches piled upon your shoulders and arms. “And at last I seemed to rise up and scream—_‘This is awful!’ We cannot wait here longer; the dust will rise and rise for ever!’_” So that in more ways than one, camp-fires in the _Ergs_ hold mysterious dangers. CHAPTER XII FEATHERS, AND THE PLACES THEY FREQUENT [Illustration] CHAPTER XII FEATHERS, AND THE PLACES THEY FREQUENT From time to time I am asked a great many questions regarding the Sahara, and nothing has pleased me more than to find that an astonishing number of people are interested in Nature, and want to know something of the wild life in the country of my travels. Invariably the first questions put by my interrogators are: _“What lives in the Great Desert?”_ and _“However do creatures exist in such a land?”_