About

I had set the nose of Babieca in the direction of the south. At first my way was taken through a pleasant country of great hills, that had cork trees on their slopes. Here and there little rivers ran in and out; sparkling in the morning sun; shining on the side of some tall mountain; circling round the foot of some grave precipice. But as the morning passed, and as hour by hour I went farther from my native hills, the nature of the land was changed. The cool woods and streams, the rich green pastures, and the fine tall hills with their garlands of dark forests yielded to a barren plain, to which, alas! there appeared to be no end. It was bare and arid, and strewn in many places with sharp rocks. There was not a tree, not a stream of water; and such horrid quantities of sand consumed it that it became at last a desert whose life was sterile. A few barren shrubs were the only things that grew there; and, as I was soon to learn, an infinite degree of misery.