“Occasionally, too, an animal has been seen running across the dry, parched sands, and birds that once flew hundreds of miles to avoid the hot plains now skim lightly across them. Then, at times, trees and green grass and cool fresh lakes of water are visible. These last disappear quickly when one approaches and tries to drink from their curling waves. Wise people call these sights mirages, but perhaps, after all, they are real, and foreshadow what the desert will become.
“The Sun Prince is wise and merciful, and though justice must be done, when justice is appeased he can restore the cooling streams and vegetation to the parched sands. Some day, perhaps, the magic spell will be withdrawn from the mysterious desert, and its shining seas again smile beneath sunny skies. Even now, Prince Corus occasionally sends a great cloudburst to drench the scorching plains. At first, we know, he did not love the barren waste. It brought back too keenly the sorrow of his stolen bride; but time has softened that feeling, and with his beloved Princess by his side, he looks down and smiles upon its glare and glitter. He shows this in the wonderful sky effects above it. They are things of beauty. If clouds gather, he tips them with rainbow colors,—brilliant reds and oranges, purples and greens, melting into delicious pinks, soft lilacs, and grays. The sunset there is a glorious sight never to be forgotten.
“Its mountains, too, are beautiful. Often the ridges are clear-cut and sharp. Again, when the Sun pours his heat upon them, they seem as flat as the palm of your hand. They change color frequently, for at times startling reds and yellows and pinks are painted in stripes all over them. Later the canyons are flashing in brilliant needle-like points of superb color, but again they are a dull blue or gray, and lose their splendor.
“But most sublime of all the sights is still the mirage. Trembling and glowing in the sea, lie trees and mountain peaks, reflected clear and beautiful. Maybe it is only the reflection of the golden haze that lies in the canyons at sunset; but whatever it is, it is one of the desert’s splendors. And though the lilac mist and the purple shadows that creep between the valleys and climb the mountains seem more natural to its desolation and its silence, yet the glory of that mirage—glittering with its dazzling hue, and flashing its strange lights like the rays from a fire-opal—will cling the longest in one’s memory.”