It is remarkable that the imposing aspects and most frequent natural phenomena of the desert do not fail to impress even the nomads who habitually witness them. As we were crossing the high plateau of Kaflan Kir, which forms part of Ustyort, running towards the north-east, the horizon was often adorned with the most beautiful Fata Morgana. This phenomenon is undoubtedly to be seen in the greatest perfection in the hot, but dry, atmosphere of the deserts of Central Asia, and affords the most splendid optical illusions which one can imagine. I was always enchanted with these pictures of cities, towers, and castles dancing in the air, of vast caravans, horsemen engaged in combat, and individual gigantic forms which continually disappeared from one place to reappear in another. As for my nomad companions, they regarded the neighbourhoods where these phenomena are observed with no little awe. According to their opinion these are ghosts of men and cities which formerly existed there, and now at certain times roll about in the air. Nay, our _Kervan bashi_ asserted that he also saw the same figures in the same places, and that we ourselves, if we should be lost in the desert, would after a term of years begin to hop about and dance in the air over the spot where we had perished. These legends, which are continually to be heard among the nomads, and relate to a supposed lost civilization in the desert, are not far removed from the new European theory, which maintains that such tracts of country have sunk into their present desolation, not so much through the operation of natural laws as through changes in their social state. As examples are cited the great Sahara of Africa and the desert of central Arabia, where cultivable land is not so much wanting as industrious hands. As regards these last countries, the assertion is probably not without some truth, but it certainly cannot be extended to the deserts of Central Asia. On certain spots, as Mero, Mangishlak, Ghergen, and Otrar, there was in the last century more cultivation than at present; but, taken as the whole, these Asiatic steppes were always, as far back as the memory of man goes, howling wildernesses. The vast tracts which stretch for many days' journeys without one drop of drinkable water, the expanses--many hundred miles in extent--of deep loose sand, the extreme violence of the climate, and such like obstacles, defy even modern art and science to cope with them. "God," said a central Asiatic to me, "created Turkestan and its inhabitants in his wrath; for as long as the bitter, saline taste of their springs exist, so long will the hearts of the Turkomans be full of anger and malice." CHAPTER V. THE TENT AND ITS INHABITANTS.