The sunrise was glorious. “In no part of the world hitherto visited have I seen aurora in such magnificence,” wrote Captain Fred Burnaby, in his Central Asian travel memoir, A Ride to Khiva (1876).
“First, a pale blue streak extending over the whole of the Eastern horizon, arose like a wall barring the unknown beyond. Suddenly, it changed colour. The summit became like lapis-lazuli, the base a sheet of purple. Waves of gray and crystal radiated from the darker hues. They relieved the eye, appalled by the vastness of the barrier. The purple foundations were in turn upheaved by seas of fire. The eye was dazzled by the glowing brilliancy. The wall of colours floating in space broke up into castles, battlements, and towers.”
Seas of flame lit up the horizon, burst their borders, formed one vast ocean. “The snowy carpet at our feet reflected like a camera the wonderful panorama ahead. Flakes of light in rapid succession bound earth to sky. At last the globe of sparkling light appeared arising from the depths of the ocean of fire.”
Then there is a sudden jolt, an exclamation from the driver, and epithets. The harness of the sleigh gives way, to break the spell as well.
