Some shots in
the distance, towards nightfall, announced that the enemy had given up
the chase. After three hours of the moon, Tancred and his companions
rested at a well not far from a village, where they obtained some
supplies. An hour before dawn, they again pursued their way over a rich
flat country, uninclosed, yet partially cultivated, with, every now and
then, a village nestling in a jungle of Indian fig.
It was the commencement of December, and the country was very parched;
but the short though violent season of rain was at hand: this renovates
in the course of a week the whole face of Nature, and pours into little
more than that brief space the supplies which in other regions are
distributed throughout the year. On the third day, before sunset, the
country having gradually become desolate and deserted, consisting
of vast plains covered with herds, with occasionally some wandering
Turkmans or Kurds, Tancred and his companions came within sight of a
broad and palmy river, a branch of the Euphrates.
The country round, far as the eye could range, was a kind of downs
covered with a scanty herbage, now brown with heat and age. When Tancred
had gained an undulating height, and was capable of taking a more
extensive survey of the land, it presented, especially towards the
south, the same features through an illimitable space.
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