When Mungo Park, deserted by his guides, and stripped by thieves, utterly paralyzed by misfortune, and misery, would have laid him down to die in a desert place,--at that moment, of all others, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification caught his eye. "I mention this," he says, "to show you from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for, though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its root, leaves, and capsule without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? I started up, and, disregarding both danger and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief was at hand; and I was not disappointed."
Richardson, in the midst of Sahara, beheld with brimming eyes two small trees, the common desert acacia, and by-and-by two or three pretty blue flowers. As he snatched them, to fold them in his bosom, he could not help exclaiming, _Elhamdullah!_ "Praise be to God!"--for Arabic was growing second-born to his tongue, and he began to think in it and to pray in it. An Arab said to him, "Yakob, if we had a reed, and were to make a melodious sound, those flowers, the color of heaven, would open and shut their mouths."
Once, Mungo Park (the once too often of telling this story can never come) sat all day,--without food, under a tree. The night threatened to be very pitiless; for the wind arose, and there was every sign of a heavy rain; and wild beasts prowled around. But about sunset, as he was preparing to pass the night in the branches of the tree, a woman, returning from the labors of the field, perceived how weary and dejected he was, and, taking up his saddle and bridle, invited him to follow her. She conducted him to her hut, where she lighted a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and bade him welcome. Then she went out, and presently returning with a fine fish, broiled it on the embers, and set his supper before him. The rites of hospitality thus performed toward a stranger in distress, that _savage_ angel, pointing to the mat, and assuring him that he might sleep there without fear, commanded the females of her family, who all the while had stood gazing on him in fixed astonishment, to resume their spinning. Then they sang, to a sweet and plaintive air, these words: "The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. Let us pity the white man; no mother hath he to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn." Flowers in the desert![1]