But the merciless sun soon crushed philosophy

TCD MS 10515 folio 61r

TCD MS 10515 folio 61r

[April 29th 1916]

For Sahib, he said, “if men were all alike, if they did not differ and quarrel, how could we gain our livelihood. Look at the fingers of my hand, how they all differ in size yet combined they make perfection; and as it it with my fingers so is it with men”.

But the merciless sun soon crushed philosophy, and I turned to observe the striping of our mules and ponder over the ancestral origin of the markings (see Nat. Hist. notes). From the mules my thoughts wandered to the interminable desert, the endless mirage, the confused haze of the far horizon. How strange are the illusions! I felt certain that the head and tail of the column were at one time moving in reverse directions and that the main body was bearing down upon the rearguard. Further off to the West