Seite:Marsh Wolfe of the knoll.djvu/97

Detdiar sidj as efterluket wurden.
101

THE CARAVAN.

Camels and men, a ceaseless tide,
First a dense line, then — spreading wide
Like a full stream that doth o'erflow
Its banks, and fill the vale below —
They roll adown the rocky steep,
And the wide olive-plains o'ersweep.

To-day the merchant caravan *
Its yearly march to far Soudan
Begins. Beneath a flaming sky
Its long and perilous way doth lie
O'er Sahara's boundless, pathless plains,
Where wild, unchanging horror reigns.
The adventurer, who shall safely reach
Nigritia's border, thence may fetch —
The price of trifles worthless nigh
To all but the untutored eye,
 
  * The reader will find a fall account of the organization and march of
the great caravans engaged in the Soudan trade, in Le Grand Desert ou
Itinéraire d'une Caravane du Sahara au pays des Nègres, par Eugene Dau-
mas, et Ausone de Chancel. Paris, 1848.