When they
arrived, the lake, on whose bosom they floated, the trees, among whose
foliage they were embowered, and the people who stood on the shore
inviting their approach, had all vanished, and nothing remained but an
uniform and irksome desert of sand and sky, with a few naked huts and
ragged shrubs. Had they not been undeceived by their nearer approach,
there was not a man in the French army who would not have sworn, that
the visionary trees and lakes had a real existence in the midst of the
desert.
The same appearance precisely was observed by Dr. Clarke at Raschid, or
Rosetta. The city seemed surrounded by a beautiful sheet of water, and
so certain was his Greek interpreter, who was acquainted with the
country, of this fact, that he was quite indignant at an Arab, who
attempted to explain to him, that it was a mere optical delusion. At
length, they reached Rosetta in about two hours, without meeting any
water; and, on looking back on the sand they had just crossed, it seemed
to them, as if they had just waded through a vast blue lake.
A similar deception takes place in northern climates.
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