The work he ought is bliss,
The highest thing to crave;
And all his life is found in this
Memorial for his grave:
_A worker with the Lord_,
_He sought no other name_,
_And found therein enough reward_,
_Enough, enough of fame_.
* * * * *
XLVI.
ALVIN S. SOUTHWORTH
CROSSING THE NUBIAN DESERT.
This gentleman, a member of the American Geographical Society, has
furnished, in the columns of _The Sunday Magazine_, the following
picture of his experience in crossing the most perilous of the African
deserts:
Those who have not actually undergone the hardships of African travel
almost always believe that the most dangerous desert routes are found in
the Great Sahara. Such is not the fact. The currency given to this
popular delusion is doubtless due to the immensity of the arid waste
extending from the Mediterranean to the Soudan, and which is deceptive
in its imagined dangers because of its large area. All travelers who
have made the transit of the Nubian Desert from Korosko, situated
between the First and Second Cataracts, southward across the burning
sands of the Nubian Desert, a distance of 425 miles, concur in the
statement that it is an undertaking unmatched in its severity and rigors
by any like journey over the treeless and shrub-less spaces of the
earth. "The Flight of a Tartar Tribe," as told by De Quincey, in his
matchless descriptive style, carrying his readers with him through
scenes of almost unparalleled warfare, privation, and cruelty, until the
remnant of the Asiatic band stands beneath the shadow of the Chinese
Wall to receive the welcome of their deliverer, but imperfectly portrays
the physical suffering that must be endured in the solitude of the most
dangerous of African deserts.
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