TCD MS 10515 folio 55v
[April 28th 1916]
Strange indeed are the appearances that rise in mockery from this unrippled sea. Men come tramping through its imaginary waters. They march ankle-deep in the shallows, blurred, quivering and lengthening into dancing, formless posts. The distant tents of an Arab camp are as a fleet of moving sails scudding before the breeze and the dull matting of their huts as to a village rising from a placid lake. Groves of trees are floating gardens; mounds of ancient ruins are barren islands scattered in a vast ocean. Slow, unwieldy camels shimmer as though they were cavalry advancing at at trot. Pelicans, large as ostriches, stand above the shore water; herds of approaching sheep are magnified into fierce, hairy