Poetry · Chapter
LXXIV explained
The travelers make their way across the Gobi Desert from two to half-past, observing a distant mountain that erupts with a fan-shaped burst of blood-red fire, its peak turbaned with smoke that reeks away solid and black from an eternal pyre
What happens
The travelers make their way across the Gobi Desert from two to half-past, observing a distant mountain that erupts with a fan-shaped burst of blood-red fire, its peak turbaned with smoke that reeks away solid and black from an eternal pyre, burdening the winds so they can scarcely breathe.
Themes in this chapter
Nature and Imagination
The depiction of the desert and the volcanic mountain blends natural landscape with imaginative, almost surreal imagery.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The narrator describes the journey across the Gobi Desert and the volcanic mountain.
Key passages
“From two to half-past, dusky way we made, Above the plains of Gobi,—desert, bleak;”
From two o'clock to half-past, we traveled along a dark path over the bleak plains of the Gobi Desert.
Establishes the time and setting of the journey.
“Beheld afar off, in the hooded shade Of darkness, a great mountain (strange to speak), Spitting, from forth its sulphur-baken peak, A fan-shaped burst of blood-red, arrowy fire, Turban’d with smoke, which still away did reek, Solid and black from that eternal pyre, Upon the laden winds that scantly could respire.”
We saw in the distance, within the dark hooded shade, a great mountain that, strangely, spewed from its sulfur-baked peak a fan-shaped burst of blood-red, arrow-like fire, turbaned with smoke that continuously reeked away, solid and black from that eternal pyre, burdening the winds so they could barely breathe.
Describes the volcanic mountain with vivid, fiery imagery.