Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 152 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0152	Among the Celestials : vol.1

124 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. VI.

beautiful, for the stars shone out with a mag-

nificence I have never seen equalled even in

the heights of the Himalayas. Venus was

a resplendent object, and guided us over. many

a mile of that desert. The Milky Way, too,

was so bright that it looked like a phos

phorescent cloud, or as a light cloud with the

moon behind it. This clearness of the atmo-

sphere was probably due to its remarkable

dryness. Everything became parched up, and

so charged with electricity, that in opening out

a sheepskin coat or a blanket a loud cracking

noise would be given out, accompanied by a

sheet of fire. A very peculiar and unlooked-

for result of this remarkable dryness of the

atmosphere was the destruction of a highly-

cherished coat which Sir John Walsham had

given me just before I left Peking, saying that

it would last me for ever ; and so it would

have done anywhere else but in the Gobi

Desert. It was made of a very closely woven

canvas material, and to all appearance was in-

destructible, but it is a fact that before a month

was over, that coat was in shreds. From the

extreme dryness it got brittle, and wherever

creases were formed, it broke in long rents.

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