midday
`` We had travelled in this way for ten days , camping every evening at the vile wells which offered a small quantity of abominable water . It was our habit to rise very early and to travel very late , but to halt during the intolerable heat of the afternoon , when , for want of trees , we would crouch in the shadow of a sandhill , or , if that were wanting , behind our own camels and merchandise , in order to escape from the insufferable glare of the sun . On the seventh day we were near the point where one leaves the coast in order to strike inland to Macoraba . We had concluded our midday halt , and were just starting once more , the sun still being so hot that we could hardly bear it , when , looking up , I saw a remarkable sight . Standing on a hillock to our right there was a man about forty feet high , holding in his hand a spear which was the size of the mast of a large ship . You look surprised , my friends , and you can therefore imagine my feelings when I saw such a sight . But my reason soon told me that the object in front of me was really a wandering Arab , whose form had been enormously magnified by the strange distorting effects which the hot air of the desert is able to cause .