And here a wild craving came upon me: I wished to follow the winding of
this brook and trace it to its source, which I judged to be not far
distant. The companion, smiled, as usual; he was ready for anything; but
the undertaking proved to be rather arduous. We walked and climbed for
long among the gardens, crawling under vines and thorny shrubs, wading
tributary brooks and clambering up and down their steep earthen banks with
a hundred dogs in full pursuit; there was no possibility of orientation;
we doubled our tracks over and over again--it was like being imprisoned in
the works of a clock.
At last, and doubtless by the merest of accidents, we emerged from the
true oasis of orderly fruit trees and vegetables; the soil became sandy
and uneven, with palms sprouting up in isolated clusters amid tamarisks
and bristly reeds. The stream, meanwhile, continued to divide and
subdivide into smaller rivulets. After a good deal of walking on this kind
of ground, we finally reached the head of the waters--the eye, as the
Arabs poetically call a fountain, alluding to its liquid purity, its
genial play of light and movement.
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