BtOLCGY

THE LIBRARY

OF
THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS

THE

WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS

A SERIES OF

GEOGRAPHICAL AND OTHER ESSAYS

ILLUSTRATIVE OF LIFE IN A WILD COUNTRY

TOGETHER WITH

EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS

CULLED FROM THE GREAT BOOK OF NATURE

IN MANY LANDS

BY

JOHN MADDEN

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I

LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & Co., LTD.

STATIONERS HALL COURT

1897
(All rights reserved)

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAPTER

PREFACE . Pages IX— XVI

I. INTRODUCTION „ l — 26

II. RETROSPECT OF GREAT HUNTERS

AND TRAVELLERS .... „ 27 — 35

III. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON

THE CLIMATIC ZONES . . . „ 36 — 5°

IV. TERRESTRIAL CLIMATES, TEMPE-

RATURES, AND ATMOSPHERIC
DISTURBANCES „ 51 —

V. THE GREAT FOREST REGION

OF THE EQUATORIAL ZONE . „ 150 —

VI. THE GREAT BUSH REGION OR

JUNGLE COUNTRY „ 241—341

VII. THE DESERT ZONE „ 342—461

M374395

PREFACE

" Oh, that mine adversary had written
a book." Job xxxi— 25.

IT is usual for authors to preface their books with
a short statement of the leading features of the
work they are about to place before the public.
In the present case, for several reasons, which
will probably be apparent to the reader as he
turns over these pages, it appears to be particu-
larly desirable to begin this book with such an
explanation ; as its design will be found to differ
a good deal from that of other books, upon
kindred subjects, which have already been published.
The Author is unable to conceal from himself
that the scope of this work is somewhat ambitious —
that is to say, it deals with a vast variety of
different topics, introducing details, many of which
have certainly (so far as his researches have
extended) never been collected into any single work
before. A number of points will also be found
debated in these pages, which he ventures to
believe have not been previously touched upon in
any other work ; other subjects again, have been
presented in a new, and as he humbly hopes, in
a not uninteresting or uninstructive form.

X PREFACE.

At any rate, the Author's constant object and
desire has been thus to present them; it will be
for the reader to judge how far he has succeeded
in this design.

But inasmuch as nothing is ever done in Nature
without some definite object, and in pursuance
of a regular system of law; the Author has con-
stantly endeavoured, throughout these volumes to
interpret, as far as he has been able, what have
seemed to him to be the causes of the various
phenomena which have been described. In doing
so, however, as the reader will see, the student
of Nature is brought face to face in almost every
instance, with a series of details, involving the
consideration of one or more questions of scientific
enquiry. The individual man might therefore well
stand appalled at the wide extent of research,
which even a very partial attempt to deal success-
fully with all these topics, is sure to cast upon
him. The Author has been painfully impressed
with this fact, but that has not seemed to him
to be a reason which ought to cause him to
hesitate to do his best in this direction.

Of course it would be impossible to suppose
that a work involving so great a variety of technical
matters as are here attempted to be dealt with,
would not be defaced by many errors and short-
comings ; all that the Author has a right to expect,
however, is, that under the circumstances, his readers
will make due allowance for the difficulties of the
task which he has attempted to perform ; and he is
sure that he will not appeal in vain to the British
Public, for their kindly consideration in this case.

PREFACE. XI

As for himself, though the compilation of these
pages has involved unremitting literary labour, of
many years' duration : the Author can only say,
the work to him has been a labour of love; and
he parts from it upon its completion, as from an
old and valued friend — his constant companion
for years. The numerous references to the works
of other authors, some of which will be found on
almost every page, will give some idea of the
variety and extent of the research which has been
necessary to obtain what seemed to be the best
and most valuable information, on the different
points discussed. The Author has in all cases,
wherever possible, always endeavoured to fortify
his own opinion by quoting that of other writers,
who may have made special studies of the different
branches of literature or of science, which may
have been touched upon; in order that where he
has erred, he may, so to speak, do so in good
company, and after consulting the best authorities
extant. The fallibility of the human understanding
has constantly been recognised by all who have
given close attention to the examination of natural
phenomena, but it is only when the student comes
to seek for facts relative to some of the matters
treated of in these volumes, that he becomes aware
of the paucity of observations which have been
recorded about them in books, and how little is
really known about such things.

It will be observed that the Author has gener-
ally avoided speaking of himself. Egotism, in
treating of such subjects, has seemed to him
both unnecessary and unbecoming, as well as

XII PREFACE.

likely seriously to mar the narrative, when describing
the splendour of the great phenomena of Nature.
The individual in all such cases, ought to be as
nothing : Nature and Science, to count as everything.
For these reasons he has forborne to speak con-
tinually of himself; he feels that the personal
pronoun— "I" -"I" -"I"- -would grate harshly
upon the nerves, as a blot upon a work which
he has done his best to make as free from obvious
defects, as he could.

As regards the general plan of this work — this
has caused its author a good deal of consideration ;
inasmuch as it embraces a great variety of details,
difficult to arrange after a continuous fashion. It
might have seemed perhaps, that it would have
been better to divide it into a series of separate
works. After much thought, however, the Author
has come to the conclusion, that it is on the whole
wiser to let it go together, as one book.

The narrative is supposed to represent the progress
of a traveller, by land and sea, through each of
the terrestrial zones; for the study of physical
geography teaches us that the earth's surface has
been arranged by Nature, in a series of belts, or
zones, as we shall call them, which extend more
or less around its whole circumference : each of
these regions being distinguished from the others,
by its own special range of climate and vegetation.

The division of the earth into climatic zones is,
however, by no means a new one ; similar attempts
having been already made by several geographers.
The reader as he goes along, will see what our
efforts have been in this direction. It will be enough,

PREFACE. XIII

with regard to this, to say at present, that the
first and second volumes are mainly devoted to
a description of these zones. It may be objected
that they embrace the world's whole terrestrial
surface, and not merely those portions of it which
are (or lately were) in a state of Nature.

That is so — but we have specially chosen the
wild and uncultivated domain of Nature; — tracts
of which still exist in all countries — for our study,
for several reasons, which will appear more clearly
fuuher on in this work — but principally because
there we see the world, as Nature herself first
laid it out, unchanged by the results of human
occupation, with its consequent almost complete
transformation of the landscape, including its original
fauna and flora.

Who for instance would recognize, the weedy
clearing of the American back-woods, with its rude
log-huts, their shabby occupants, and fire-blackened
stumps dotted over the fields, as the grand primeval
forest country of Oregon or California? Who would
regard the South African grass veld, over whose
dreary monotonous surface one may now travel
for hundreds of miles, without seeing a single head
of game ot any description; as the counti/, where
just half a centuiy ago, Gordon Gumming chased
the magnificent herds of wild game, which then
literally covered the country? If we see a tree
there, the great chances are it belongs, not to the
South African, but to the Australian forest flora !
If we see a beast, it is probably an ox, a horse, or
a sheep, introduced into the country by the European
settler !

XIV PREFACE.

If therefore we desire to describe Nature in its
original beauty and splendour, it has always seemed
to us, that it is best seen in the wild, or wilderness
country. In regions where the ultra- civilization
of modern life prevails, we do not see it thus:
what we see is an artificial landscape arranged
after the tastes and fancies of its human inhabitant.
Takmg our own country for instance, as an example
of the changes that have occurred, we find its
ancient records show that Great Britain in its
natural state, w?s mainly a land of forests, swamps,
and moorland. How different is its present condition !

The reader will please to remembeA, that the
question as to which is better than the other,
does not arise: our design is to describe Nature
" unadorned," and as she is, or rather was. At
the same time we are fully conscious of the improve-
ment of many natural products through cultivation.
Who, for instance, would recognize the splendid
Hybrid perpetual rose of our gardens, as the wild
rose of our hedgerows? Who would see in the
shoi c-horned cattle, or the Berkshire pig, the same
animals as their wild ancestors?

All that we say is, that these are not the same
as the original productions of Nature. These
things exhibit the power of human agency to
modify the works of Nature. But Nature for her
own wise reasons will have none of them ; and
were human culture to be withdrawn, in a compara-
tively sliort time both the flower and the cattle
would have followed their owners, to that land
where all things are forgotten.

Savage life is however repugnant to many persons,

PREFACE. XV

on account of its apparently inhospitable and unsocial
character. That being so, we have commenced
our work by making, for the contemplation of
our readers, a collection of the written opinions,
given as the result of a life's experience, by some
of the world's greatest travellers and hunters ; and
have left them to describe in their own words,
how deeply the wild charms of Nature had bewitched
them. These quotations are given without comment
by us, and will follow the introductoi/ chapter
to our first volume.

Such a collection of opinions on this subject
has never before been brought together. We
may say the same with reference to our collection
of accounts of the great herds of game, seen in
former days, contained in Volume III. To these
latter we have appended some lines by Thomas
Pringle, the poet of South Africa, descriptive of
that hunters' paradise, as he saw it in the early
paic of this century. This poem, though now
very generally forgotten by the world, created at
the time that it was written great sensation and
attention in literary circles; as will be seen by
some details with reference to it which have been
reproduced. We may add that the Colonial
authorities in South Africa, are unanimous in
regarding it as the best, and most life-like picture
of the great hunting days, which is extant. It is
for that reason that we have ventured to embody
it in these pages.

Our geographical essays, which contain a series
of sketches of the terrestrial zones, their scenery,
and productions, and of the wild people who

XVI PREFACE.

inhabit them, would manifestly be incomplete
without some account of the game, from a sporting
point of view, both by flood and field, for which
the wilderness has been so celebrated. These
sporting sketches form the greater portion of our
third volume.

Lastly, in a work somewhat technical in many
of its details, we have been impressed with the
importance of a complete index, by means of which
any desired subject treated of in these pages, can
be readily referred to. This index, comprising
some two thousand items, is placed at the end
of Volume III. It has of course necessitated con-
siderable literary labour in its compilation. If
however, it serves the purpose for which it was
intended, we shall by no means deem the time
expended upon it as lost.

HILTON PARK, December 1896.

The Wilderness and Its Tenants.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

The Domain of Nature. Value of Experiences gained in a Wild
Country. The Senses blunted by City Life for Observation of Natural
Details. Attractions of Wild Life and Scenery. The Hunting Instinct
in Mankind. The Spirit of Adventure. Home and Foreign Field Sports.
The White Conquest of America. The Aboriginal Races of Mankind.
Changeless Aspect of the Wilderness. Inhabitants mostly Confined to
Village or City Communities. Cemeteries in the Plain. Deep Travel-worn
Paths. Civilized Man and Wild Game. The Red Man and the White.
"The White Man's Fly." An Indian Chief's Appeal to the Mercy of
his White Conquerors. Darwinian Theory of the Survival of the Fittest.
Life as an Incessant Warfare. Mr. Froude on the Disappearance of
Wild Races. Opinions of Great Hunters and Travellers upon Life in
the Wilderness. Travelling in Search of Health. Unnecessary Hardships
to be Avoided. Habits of Observation the First Qualification for a
Traveller.

WHEN the old traveller proceeds to review the
various topics connected with such a subject as
that of "The Wilderness and Its Tenants" (or in
other words " The Domain of Nature," as distinguished
from the settlements and habitations of Man), he finds
himself met at the outset by a crowd of recollections,
which rise up like spectres before the mind's eye, and,
after the manner of champions in the old Olympian
games, seem to contend with each other for a leading
place in the narrative.

VOL. I. i

2 THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS.

There is perhaps hardly a single one of these which
does not recall some circumstance worthy of note,
connected either with some picturesque scene, or dra-
matic incident, which has fixed itself indelibly upon
the memory. If the life of a traveller is not full of
such recollections it must be due to some defect in
his own powers of observation, for no drama that has
ever been acted upon the boards of a play-house can
compare in variety, or in sensational incident, with
that which is being continually acted in the great
Theatre of Nature. This is the view which has impressed
itself more and more deeply upon our mind as we
have laboriously arranged these pages.

It might be supposed that residence in a savage land
would usually be exceedingly bad for a man ; and be
certain^in almost all cases to have a decidedly unfavour-
able effect upon the mind and character of members
of a civilized community. Whatever influence a per-
manent withdrawal from the softening influence of
civilized life might have in this way, we hold that a
temporary sojourn in the wilderness ought to have, and
in many cases certainly has, a directly opposite effect.
There a man is of necessity left in direct communi-
cation with Nature ; the cares of a busy world have
been left behind him, and, except the daily routine of
travel, there is generally nothing to distract the mind
in its contemplation of the phenomena of Nature. In
Europe, as we know, the man harassed by the cares
of business seeks repose at some quiet spot at the
seaside, or in some secluded mountain valley — that is
to say, he unconsciously seeks, for this purpose,
the [ nearest approach to the wilderness within his
reach; — but in America, where considerable tracts

INTRODUCTION. 3

of country still remain in a state of nature, it is a very
common thing for men oppressed by over-work, or
mental worry, to go into camp, in the woods or on
the plains. * The balmy incense of the pine forest, or
the brisk air of mountain solitudes, is often found the
most powerful of all tonics for the disordered digestion
or overtaxed brain. The gay watering-place may suit
the fancy of the blase woman of fashion, but is often
of questionable benefit to the brain-worker.

There is another aspect of this question which is
less generally understood, namely, that a residence in
a wild country opens up to a man of observant habits,
or scientific tastes, a new form of highly technical
education of a most valuable kind.

Here, circumstances teach the unobservant to observe;
and it may be very safely assumed that a well-balanced,
highly educated mind can hardly pass through even a
few weeks of such a course of training, without
acquiring great and permanent benefit. Experience,
for example, has conclusively shown the immense
value, to every man, of a short course of military
discipline and instruction. Now, the life of a traveller
in the wilderness is very much like that of a soldier
in the field: nor is it too much to say that every
soldier will return to barracks a better soldier, after a
few weeks' camping on his own resources in a wild
country. Nature herself is there our commanding officer,
necessity our drill sergeant; we must learn to be self-
reliant, to use our eyes and ears, and to make a
note of what we see. Rank, wealth, or book-learning,

* During 1896 appeals for help towards fitting out recreation camps
for city boys, appeared in the leading London papers — the experiment
having been tried in 1895 with conspicuous success.

4 THE SCHOLAR AND THE SAVAGE.

can here do comparatively little for a man. The proud
or boastful man is put to silence and acknowledges
his own littleness. If a crisis arises, the direction of
affairs must be left to the practised woodsman or
hardy pioneer, even though that man cannot read a
printed book.

The late Mr. Francis Parkman, the Historian of
Canada, a most learned scholar and indefatigable
literary worker (who tells us that he himself first
learned his own powers on the prairies, among the
Indians of the Far West), has left us many striking
passages scattered here and there throughout his works,,
showing how strongly he was impressed by the
value of experiences and the spirit of self-reliance
gained in a savage land. We shall quote but a
single instance of such passages to be found in these
charming and instructive works, where he says —

" The nursling of civilization, placed in the midst of the
forest, and abandoned to his own resources, is as helpless as
an infant. To the practised woodsman the Forest is a home,
and yields him food, shelter, and raiment, and he threads
its trackless depths with undeviating foot; guiding his course
by the wind, the streams, or the trees. Such are the arts
which the white man has learned from the red, who reads
the signs of the forest as the scholar reads the printed page.
With us the name of savage is a byeword of reproach — the
Indian looks with equal scorn on those who, buried in useless
lore, are blind and deaf to the great world of Nature " *

This strange blindness to the great features of
Nature is indeed remarkable ! and it would almost
seem as if persons of high intellectual attainments are

* The Conspiracy of Pontiac, by Francis Parkman, 1885, Vol. i,.
pp. 159, 160.

THE SENSE OF DIRECTION IN SAVAGES. 5

often singularly helpless and stupid in this respect.
When alone, and thrown upon their own resources,
they simply lose their heads. Mr. Parker Gilmore
relates a notable instance of this in the person of one
of his companions, a highly educated gentleman, and
one who had moreover distinguished himself at his
University: such cases are by no means uncommon.

" Of all the hunting companions I have ever had (he says),
— and they have been numerous enough— I never was associ-
ated with one who had a poorer idea of direction. It has
puzzled me, times beyond count, how any man could be
so stupid in this respect, and it sometimes quite used to
make me lose my temper to see with what persistency he
would adopt a wrong course, and worse still, stick to it,
in spite of all argument and persuasion." Mr. Parker Gil-
more then goes on to observe that he "has invariably
found that the higher the type of man, in breeding and
educational acquirements, the more certain he is to be
an adept at wandering, when left to his own resources" —
Whereas "The lowest organizations to be found in the
human family, such as the Digger Indian, and the Bush-
man, never get lost. However similar the landscape, they
will retrace their steps to their starting point without hesita-
tion or doubt." *

Now to what are we to attribute this strange
incapacity? Is it some inherited defect, bred in the
organization of the higher type of humanity — or is it
simply due to want of training in the practical habits
of every-day observation?

We are decidedly disposed to adopt the latter view.
Intelligence, we believe, is sure to tell in the long
run, provided it is properly trained and directed. The

* The Hunters' Arcadia, by Parker Gilmore, 1886, pp. IOO, 101.

6 WHITE AND INDIAN TRACKERS.

educated scholar, living in the midst of an ultra-
civilization, fails, because he has never had to study
the details of a landscape where human landmarks
have never been set — and drifts he knows not whither,
like a sailor at sea, in thick weather, without a com-
pass. The sense of direction, and the faculty of
knowing1 where one is, is quite as much a matter
of education as the acquirement of any other branch
of knowledge.

Experience, however, shows that it is quite possible
for the white man to learn all the arts of the Indian,
With practice and application he may gradually acquire
the art of knowing how to hold his course through
an unknown land, and to follow the trails or marks
left by game or hostile natives, with all the unerring
certainty of the Red man. In such cases his superior
intelligence (should he adopt the hunter's life) will
undoubtedly in the end enable him to beat the In-
dian at his own game, though it may be quite true
that, as a rule, few white men have ever attained
to that degree of proficiency. Still we have known
such men.

Those whose researches may have carried them much
into the early literature of America, and the history
of the settlement of the New World by the European
invaders, will be conversant with the all-powerful in-
fluence which the attractions of the wilderness developed
among those who emigrated to seek a home in those
Western Wilds.

The numbers of those who, tired of the dull routine
of existence in the settlements, have adopted the
wandering life of the hunter, have always been great.
Many of these men became to all intents and purposes

WHITE INDIAN CAPTIVES. 7

Indians, and were skilled in all the arts of the Red
man. Nearly every Indian tribe numbered a certain
proportion of Whites among its adherents. Still more
remarkable were the cases of those who were forcibly
carried off into captivity by the Indians. Many of
these, when they were, after long years, recaptured
by the conquering Whites, were found to have grown
so attached to the Indian mode of life, that they refused
to quit their red companions; and actually had to be
carried back to the settlements by force. Instances of
this will be given further on in these pages.

These things are notorious, and American historical
writers are unanimous in admitting it; but we have not
been able to find a single instance where an Indian
has adopted the white man's mode of life, except under
compulsion: — "The Indian," says Mr. Parkman, "is a
true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes
and solitudes of Nature are his congenial home." *

The history of Australian and African exploration
gives results practically identical, and shows that not-
withstanding all its dangers, hardships, and uncertainties,
the adventurous life of an explorer possesses extraordinary
attractions. "Once an explorer (it has been said),
always an explorer" — and in spite of years, and failing
health, etc., we constantly find the same men venturing
again and again upon fresh enterprises, until finally,
in many cases, they have left their bones in the wilderness.
It would be easy to quote quite a long list of such
instances. Charles John Andersen, the well-known
Swedish naturalist and traveller, for instance, lived for
nearly a quarter of a century in his waggon in the

* The Conspiracy of Pontiac, by Francis Parkman, 1885, Vol. i, p. i.

8 DIED IN THE WILDERNESS.

wilds of South Africa, and finally died * in the course
of his journeyings through the desert, worn out by
wounds and disease, and was buried in the pathless
wilderness, no man knows where.

Then we have the case of Dr. Edward Schnitzer
(Emin Pasha), the late renowned Austrian explorer and
scientist, who, after being rescued from captivity by
Mr. Stanley, though broken down in health and almost
blind, insisted upon again returning, alone and un-
attended by white companions, to unknown regions in
Central Africa, where, it is said on good authority, he
was at last killed, and even eaten, together with his
native followers, by the wild tribes whose territories
he was traversing, f

In every part of the world, wherever an unexplored
region exists, we find the same strange fascination
seeming to attract the adventurer to renewed efforts,
whether it be among the frozen regions of the icy
seas, or the burning sands of the African or Australian
deserts. Everywhere the attractions of the Wilderness
seem to retain their constant hold upon the human
mind, and to draw the wanderer, again and again,
into revisiting them.

Nor can this predilection be regarded as unnatural,
or one which ought to be censured. Scientifically
speaking, it can hardly be doubtful that it has been

* He died of fever and dysentery, after wounds, in his waggon, in
the Ovampo wilderness of South Africa, July 1867, and was buried in
the desert, the natives refusing to allow the body to be interred near
their Kraals. See p. 335, ftotes of Travel in South Afrz'cabyC.J.
Andersen (Edited, after his death, by L. Lloyd, with a biographical
sketch).

f See London Times of Sept. 5, 1893: Account of Emin Pasha's
murder, given on the authority of the missionary Mr. A. T. Swann, of
the London Missions Staff.

THE HUNTING INSTINCT IN MAN. Q

inherited from our first parents, and that it is part of
" the hunting instinct " which has descended from
primeval times as part of man's savage nature. But
it is not the worse for that — some of the finest traits
in human character being likewise traceable to the same
source. We see this hunting propensity illustrated
every day in those " sporting tastes " which seem to
be part of every man's nature, and which neither time,
nor education, nor the restraints of business, nor the
cares of family life have ever been able wholly to
eradicate in any class of the community. They burn
as strongly now, in the breast of the over-wrought
miner or city factory-hand, as in that of the proudest
lord of the soil or of the forest. Nor should this instinct
be regarded as degrading by the moralist; for it is
notorious that most of the world's greatest men have
generally been among the keenest sportsmen. Even
the great Napoleon solaced his exile in St. Helena by
occasionally going out with a gun.* The captious
critic, or the cynic, may affect to regard these things
as "a relic of barbarism," or to ridicule them as silly
romantic sentiment; but the fact will still remain that
the youth who is insensible to the joys of the chase,
or to the attractions of the field and the willow-margined
stream, as well as to the grandeur of the ocean or
the mountain, is seldom one destined to play a great
part in the world's history.

The leaders of mankind have generally sprung from
the ranks of the most high-spirited and adventurous

* See History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena. From
the letters and journals of the late Lieut. Gen. Sir Hudson Lowe,
and other official documents, by William Forsyth, 1853, Vol. iii,
pp. 206, 211 and 217.

10 GREAT MEN MOSTLY KEEN SPORTSMEN.

youths, most of whom have been distinguished for
their love of field sports. As a conspicuous instance
of this, we may cite the name of Washington.

It is impossible for the thoughtful man not to recognise
the enormous influence which " the adventurer " has
constantly exercised over the course of human events.
The history of mankind in every age has constantly
proved that the spirit of adventure burns strongly and
fiercely within the human breast; and probably no-
where shall we find its influence more strongly marked
than in the careers of those great men who have left
behind them imperishable records, as illustrious "men
of action." The early history of almost all those who
have afterwards been distinguished as great rulers of
mankind, or as great navigators, explorers, or prominent
soldiers of fortune, has proved the truth of this maxim.
Men may call it "ambition," or whatever else they
please, but it is this spirit to do and dare beyond
the range of common mortals, which has caused them
to seek the bubble reputation of leaders in this band
of adventurous men, some few of whom have thereby
risen to fame and honour.

So also in the less obtrusive, but perhaps still nobler
sphere of literary or scientific renown. The philosophers,
of whom it may be said, that wherever in the world
of letters science is looked up to, and learning is
respected, there their names are known and honoured —
all of them, in their own peculiar line, have been
enthusiasts, imbued with the spirit of adventure, which
has prompted them to seek in the hidden fields of
learning the path that leads to glory.

The dull routine of existence, imposed by the

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE. II

necessities of modern life upon the professional and
mercantile classes, is, as we know, exceedingly
distasteful to many young" men. Hence it is that the
more daring and ambitious spirits often resolve to
break away from its restraints ; and set forth, in constantly
increasing numbers, to seek their fortunes in foreign
lands, hoping there to find better openings for rising
talent and industry, than in the overstocked markets
at home.

The same restless impulse pervades no less strongly
the rising generation of young men of independent
means and fortune. The vain pomps and vanities of
city life suit neither the tastes nor aspirations of many
of these fiery spirits. It will be time enough to return
to these things, so they think, when the heyday of
youth is over, and after they have seen something of
the great world of nature, — which is spread out beyond
the seas for those that choose to seek it. Nor is it
unreasonable that these youths should aspire to see
something of its wonders, beauties, and romance,
about which they have heard so much, provided their
circumstances admit of it, before they settle down into
quiet, stay-at-home, respectable old fogies.

Those of them who are men of sporting tastes find
the exercise of their favourite pastime every day becoming
more restricted and expensive at home — where, as we
know, a small fortune may easily be spent upon deer
forests, fisheries, or tracts of mixed shooting. Here,
too, the net result is very often nothing but disappoint-
ment and vexation of spirit: for a man may pay for
what are represented to be first rate sporting quarters,
only to find that he does not get what he has paid
for. He therefore comes to the conclusion that if he

12 THE TRAVELLER AS A HUNTER.

wishes to save his pocket, and at the same time obtain
better sport, the most thickly populated country in the
world is hardly the place to look for it; and though
" the great hunting days" are gone for ever, there can
be no doubt that if a man desires to enjoy fairly good
sport without having to pay extravagantly for it, he
will do better abroad.

The careers of the traveller and sportsman are in
fact so closely intermingled that it would be impossible
to dissociate them. Whatever may be the intent with
which a traveller may penetrate into the remoter and
more thinly populated territories, he can hardly go
far without having many opportunities of exercising
his skill as a sportsman ; and in the unpeopled wilder-
ness, of course, he will be to a great extent dependent
upon the produce of the chase for his daily sustenance.
An indifferent hunter, in fact, is lacking one of the
first qualifications requisite for a successful explorer.

Many of the most successful settlers in the " Far
West," for instance, were adventurers, who began life
as trappers, fur-hunters, or Indian traders. In fact, it
was these hardy pioneers who gradually opened up
those vast and fertile regions to the settlement of
civilized man; and as we know, every one of this
gallant band of daring spirits was a skilled hunter,
and all were dead shots with the rifle, and tho-
roughly experienced in all the tricks and artifices of
Indian warfare.

There is hardly a page of early American history
that is not replete with exciting narratives of the daring
courage of such men, and though the story of the
white conquest of the Western World has been written
upon by many, and has formed the subject of numerous

PIONEERS OF CIVILIZATION. 13

bulky volumes, it is one which nevertheless yet waits
to have full justice done to it, until some great writer
shall arise who, inspired by the majesty of the subject,
shall be found capable of drawing with a master hand
the picturesque details of this strange romantic history
in all its dramatic completeness.

Few of us indeed at the present day at all realize
how great an achievement the colonization of America
was. Like that of all new countries, however, its
early annals consist, almost entirely, of the history of
the Traveller, the Explorer, and the Hunter; and if
we study the circumstances attending the march of
human progress, we shall find these sturdy adventurers
have formed the vanguard of all great forward move-
ments of the sort.

In these days a policy of foreign conquest is regarded
as an unwarrantable outrage upon human liberty.
That is as may be: but here it may be well to call
attention to a remarkable feature characteristic of lands
inhabited by savage races. Though everything points
to the conclusion that these countries have been peopled
by human beings from periods of enormous antiquity,
no advance, as a rule, has ever been made in civiliz-
ation until after the advent of the invader. The
aboriginal tribes remained exactly what they had been
for thousands of years during the past, and what, if
left to themselves, they would in all probability have
continued for thousands of years to come: thereby
affording one more illustration of this strange yet
undeniable fact, that in almost every part of the world
the primeval races of the human family have proved
to be deficient in some essential qualification which is
necessary to enable them to raise themselves in the

14 ABORIGINAL RACES OF MANKIND.

social scale. The consequence is they have always
remained, as in Africa, either in a state of unmitigated
barbarism, or else, taken at their very best, they have
advanced up to a certain point, but seem to be in-
capable of progressing beyond it.

The history of the oriental races furnishes a good
illustration of nations coming under this second cate-
gory.

In Asia, the reputed cradle of the human race,
where the records relating to the early history of
mankind are at present held to reach further back
than in any other quarter of the globe, into the
fringe of an unknown and boundless antiquity: its
history is to this day, for the most part, that of the
tented field, where the traveller is compelled to make
his way through trackless plains and forests, or through
mountain fastnesses, into almost unknown and inhos-
pitable regions, inhabited by wild and hostile races,
which the narrow policy of exclusion still endeavours
to keep closed against the inroads of foreigners. Nearly
all Central Asia remains in this condition to the pre-
sent day.

Wherever, in portions of the great Asiatic conti-
nent, a civilized government has established those con-
ditions which render progress possible, we owe it to
the sturdy European adventurer, who, planting trading
posts in the first instance, has subsequently, under the
protection of his country's flag, displaced the native
rulers, or compelled them by force of arms to submit
to these elementary conditions of civilized society.
The history of the British Empire in India is replete
with such instances.

But, amid the busy whirl of modern life, where so

THE WILDERNESS AT THE PRESENT DAY. 15

many subjects of interest and importance demand our
attention, The Wilderness and its Tenants may perhaps
appear to some to be one which from a practical
point of view is too remote to be of much general
interest.

Yet when we come to consider the matter a little
more closely, we become aware that, taking the sur-
face of the terrestrial globe as a whole, even now but
little more than one half the habitable portion of it
is more than nominally in the hands of civilized man
—while the remainder (though of course in varying
degrees) is either in the hands of semi-civilized, or of
wholly uncivilized races.

The march of progress, and the innumerable demands
created by a highly organized state of society, such
as we have become accustomed to, makes the very
idea of remaining stationary a matter of impossibility.
So incessant are the changes that, as we know, new
and useful inventions have in the present day some-
times become actually obsolete before they have had
time to come into general notice. We can therefore
hardly realize that, alongside of all this feverish haste
and enterprise, there co-exists a condition of affairs
where everything is diametrically the reverse of all this.

Yet, the moment we come to consider this question
of "The Wilderness and its Tenants," we find that the
thing which strikes us most forcibly is the changeless
aspect of everything.

Here, nothing ever becomes obsolete or out of date.
The hand of Nature has itself arranged the landscape,
down to its minutest details — and as for the men whom
the accident of birth has placed there, the self-same
manners, customs, and dress, exist, so far as we can

16 BEDOUINS AT A DESERT WELL.

judge, as they have existed it may be for hundreds,
or even for thousands of years.

Take for instance the case of those changeless eastern
races — the Arabs. No great stretch of imagination is
required to conceive a caravan of these bronzed and
bearded children of the wilderness, arriving and pitch-
ing their camp upon the brink of some desert watering
place. The Arab patriarch, gazing down into its
pellucid depths, can see in his own figure, reflected
in its glassy surface, the stereotyped image of four
thousand years ago — it might be of Abraham, as he
once stood, when he tended his flocks upon these plains
— a pilgrim, a wanderer, and a dweller in tents, as he
and all his fathers were.

Passing, however, from these nomadic tribes to the
consideration of the conditions of life as they still exist
amongst the dwellers in cities throughout a great part
of the semi-civilized communities, we shall find that it
corresponds in a great degree to life in a species of
permanent encampment. The unsettled state of society
generally causes the inhabitants to remain closely cooped
up within the boundaries of the town by night, from
whence they can daily sally forth in security to look
after their gardens or cultivated grounds in the vicinity.
This is so in more than one European country at the
present time; and in Eastern lands is generally the
normal state of affairs.

When we pass beyond the limits of the town we
quickly find almost every trace of human occupation
cease, and thus we have brought home to our minds
the true significance of the expression so often used
in the New Testament, where the dwellers are repre-
sented as going forth from the great cities of Ancient

DEEP TRAVEL- WORN TRAILS. 17

Palestine "into the wilderness," much as we in Eng-
land might talk of going out for a walk in the fields.

In the present day such are the actual conditions
of life in many of the cities of these countries. Im-
mediately outside the walls are probably cemeteries,
where in the open plain, from age to age, the ashes
of successive generations of the inhabitants have been
interred; marked in most cases, when marked at all,
simply by rough stones set at the head and foot. *
Beyond this rude city of the dead, seamed with
numerous trails, worn by the feet of animals, which
form the only highways of issue from the city, we
very generally come upon a zone of cultivated gardens,
encircling the walls for a more or less considerable
distance.

If we follow one of these beaten trails towards the
open country, we sometimes find the road passing
between high banks on either side; but these cuttings
have not been excavated by human labour; for roads
in these countries have not been laid out by engineers
or surveyors. They have been worn away by the feet
of many generations of men and animals which have
constantly passed along that same well-worn path, and
thus, combined with the action of the winds and rains,
in the course of ages these channels have been cut
as they are now seen to exist, f In the old road leading
from Jerusalem to Jericho, for example, we can still

* As a type of a city thus circumstanced we may cite the instance
of Jerusalem, as seen now. Cairo in the same way is situated in the
midst of a vast Necropolis.

-j- Deep travel-worn trails of this kind are common in many parts of
India, but excellent examples of such sunken paths may be seen much
nearer home, in the vicinity of the Field of Waterloo, where many
of the cross roads and country lanes are thus sunk below the general
level of the country.

VOL. I. 2

1 8 ANCIENT HSTORIC TRAILS.

trace throughout its whole extent the ancient trail,
and even the very stones, over which it is probable
that St. Paul, and even Christ Himself, travelled
nearly 1900 years ago. But the rocky nature of the
soil has in most places prevented its becoming deeply cut.
In wild countries the Wilderness often, indeed
usually, comes up to the very walls of the city, within
whose boundaries but too frequently there is nothing
but decay ; and on reaching the limits of the cultivated
zone we at once enter the wild domain of Nature that
extends beyond. In very many cases the thorny bush
comes up to the very edge of the gardens, of which
we have already spoken — and the track, if we continue
to follow it, may lead us for miles and miles — it may
be even for days — through an uninhabited region, till
we reach the next city. If we diverge from the beaten
path, for any distance to either side, we find ourselves
immediately enveloped in the trackless waste, the
haunts of wild beasts — that is " the Wilderness. "

The rapidity with which the settlers of a civilized
and powerful nation over-run the lands of savage races,
and turn even the barren wilderness into fruitful plains,
is well known. The hardy and adventurous spirits
who act as their pioneers are, as we have said, mostly
professional hunters and trappers, who quickly clear the
country of the larger herds of game.

As agricultural and pastoral settlers begin to establish
themselves, of course considerable numbers of wild
animals of the larger kinds, in a state of nature, become
incompatible with profitable agriculture. * Consequently

* Thus, we regret to state, the Boers in South Africa are killing all
the game that remains. " It eats up the grass they want for their
cattle," they say.

BUFFALO ON THE PRAIRIES OF THE FAR WEST. 1 9

we always find that as the white man advances
the great herds of game retire — and gradually dis-
appear.

A remarkable instance of this is the well-known case
of the bison, or buffalo, of the North American prairies,
which is now practically extinct, except as a domestic
animal — although at a comparatively recent date, during
the lifetime of the present generation, they still roamed
in incredible numbers throughout the vast territories
of the Far West. The author himself has seen buffalo
covering these plains in immense herds, extending in
all directions to the most distant horizon — large bands
of them appearing at times like great, brown, ploughed
fields, in motion. — Yet now, the only representatives
of this splendid animal are some two or three small
herds captured as calves upon their native plains,
existing as a species of semi-domestic cattle, in a
state of confinement, from the hybrid descendants of
which, crossed with the ordinary breeds of domestic
cattle, great things are expected.

The fatal influence which the presence of the White
man, and the use of firearms, was likely to have on
the quantity of game frequenting a country was quickly
recognized by those true children of the forest and the
wilderness, the Red Indians.

The acute habits of observation habitual to this race
of hunters, schooled from their infancy in the stern
cradle of necessity, and dependent as they were, almost
exclusively, for their very existence, upon the fruits of
the chase, soon taught them to recognize in the " Pale
Faces " their most insidious and deadly foes.

It is remarkable how early in the history of American
colonization the Indians, with prophetic accuracy, seem

20 THE WHITE CONQUEST OF AMERICA.

to have foretold the extermination of the Red man
by the White.

Their efforts to deliver themselves from the presence
of the dreaded invader naturally gave rise to most of
the Indian wars, which have so constantly occurred
in the history of American progress. The picturesque
details of the 'last great struggle of the Red man for
the supremacy of his race, which succeeded almost
immediately after the British conquest of Canada in
1762 and 1763, are related by Francis Parkman in his
interesting work " The Conspiracy of Pontiac," a book in
many respects more interesting than any romance.

But before we pass to another branch of this sub-
ject, one brief anecdote illustrative of this prevailing
presentiment among the Indians of the impending
destruction of their race, may not be out of place.

At an early period of colonial history, the English
honey bee was brought to America by the European
settlers. * It had previously been unknown in North
America ; but once it became domesticated among the
luxuriant flora of that exhaustless soil, it multiplied
exceedingly, and swarms of it taking wing, quickly
spread to westward, over the Indian hunting grounds.
Here it became known to the Indians under the name
of " The White Man's Fly" The appearance of the
honey bee was therefore held by them to be an
evil omen — its advent being regarded as the precursor
of the " Pale Faces." For, it was said — " As the honey
bee comes and settles itself upon the flowers of the
prairie and the forest, and drinks of their sweetness;

* The Honey Bee (Apis Mellifica) was introduced into America, at
Boston, about the year 1670 (Haydn's Diet, of Dates, 28th Edit. 1892.
Art. "Bee").

THE WHITE MAN'S FLY. 21

so shall the White man hereafter come to inherit
the Indian's hunting grounds."

We are all aware of the tales of Indian cruelty and
outrage, with which the records of frontier life in the
American wilderness are filled — still it is impossible
not to feel a certain sympathy with the misfortunes of
this unhappy people, doomed by the inexorable decrees
of fate to pass away like the buffalo, and to be driven
forth from those fair and fertile lands, which were once
their heritage; and the touching and eloquent appeal
of the Indian Chief, when remonstrating with his white
conquerors against the hardship of his lot in having to
vacate his territory for the benefit of the invader, has
many times been repeated in the works of American
writers. "We were born," he exclaimed, "under the
shadow of these trees; and our fathers' bones lie
buried beneath them. — Shall we say to the bones of
our forefathers, * Arise and come with us into a foreign
land'?"

It is true that the Indians were sometimes offered
certain quantities of what were known as " Indian
Trade Goods " in exchange for their lands, but as the
Indians justly remarked, "Blankets and cloths soon
grow old and wear out, but land lasts for ever."

The history of the Red man, his sorrows and troubles,
and the wild, romantic incidents of his struggle for
existence, which from generation to generation has
been carried on, under the shadow of the primeval
forest or upon the broad expanse of the Western
prairies, may be taken as a type of the conflict of
races, which has so often been repeated in every
quarter of the globe — invariably with the same result.

Wheresoever the civilized man has met the " Tenants

22 LIFE AS AN INCESSANT WARFARE.

of the Wilderness" and has disputed with them for
possession of the land, the truth of the Darwinian
theory of "the survival of the fittest" has established
itself — by the civilized man displacing the aboriginal
stock, whether of man or of animals, even down to
many of the original flora of the country.

From the beginning of time this has been the universal
law. It is not that Nature is partial in her dealings
—by no means. The smiles and frowns of fortune
are but a fiction of the poet's brain. If we interpret
the provisions of her statute's rightly, we shall find
that the unchangeable law of Nature has ordained that
" life is an incessant warfare " — and in that fierce
struggle for existence there is no such thing as standing
aloof — we must fight, or die. There is no such thing
as " quarter " to the vanquished. The strongest
and the fittest conquers and survives, while the
weaker falls and perishes — for the same reason that
10 pounds will weigh down 5 pounds — because it is
the heaviest.

Is there then no other principle recognized in Nature
than the rule of brute force?

Probably on this head all that can be safely said
is that if we would avoid the penalties inevitably
attached to a defiance of the laws of Nature, it can
only be by obedience to the precepts taught us
through the knowledge gained by means of her works.

And herein lies the true secret of the power of
civilization. The light of science enables the civilized
man to come nearer to this standard than the un-
civilized man, and therefore he becomes the strongest
and the fittest, and thus in "the warfare of life" he sur-
vives while the other perishes.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WILD RACES. 23

A paragraph in Mr. Froude's Oceana has a few
well-chosen remarks upon this subject as follows

" It is with the wild races of human beings, as with wild
animals, and trees, and plants. Those only will survive, who
can domesticate themselves into modern forms of social de-
velopment. The lion, the leopard, the eagle and the hawk
— every creature of earth or air which is wildly free, dies off,
or disappears. — The sheep, the ox, the horse, the ass, accepts
his bondage, and thrives, and multiplies. — So it is with man.
The negro submits to the conditions, becomes useful and
rises to a higher level. The Red Indian and the Maori pine
away as in a cage, sink first into apathy and moral degra-
dation, and then vanish." *

We propose to close this portion of our work with
a chapter containing" a number of passages selected
from the works of great travellers and hunters, relating
in each man's own words how deeply the attractions
of " the Wilderness and its Tenants " (or in other words,
"Wild Life, Wild Lands, and Wild Sports ") have taken
hold upon their affections.

As we have explained in our preface, we believe
the idea of making a collection of this sort has never
occurred to any previous author; the reader will,
however, see for himself how strongly these opinions
corroborate the views already expressed in our intro-
ductory pages, as to the valuable nature of the training
which a short period of travel and residence in wild
countries is calculated to have upon every intelligent
mind.

We might extend the number of these extracts
almost indefinitely, and it would be easy to cite many

* Oceana, or England and Her Colonies, by James Anthony Froude,
1886, p. 303.

24 RETROSPECTS OF A LIFE OF TRAVEL.

cases where travellers, returning after such an experience,
have frankly admitted that its effect had gone the
length of influencing their whole subsequent careers;
and all without exception look back to it ever afterwards
as among the happiest and brightest periods of their
existence. Nevertheless there may have been cases
where the results have been less fortunate, but if so
it is more than probable that the fault was with the
individual — not with the wild graces of Nature.

The unanimous verdict of the experienced travellers
whose opinions we append is that they at all events
were each and all of them the better for it. The
opinions of these experts, moreover, prove beyond
question how strongly the charms of nomadic life
appeal to the human heart; and perhaps it is not too
much to say that in nearly every case (notwithstanding
many counterbalancing circumstances, and certain
undoubted drawbacks) the instinct has continued to
burn fiercely within the breast of each of them, to the
end of their earthly careers.

As regards the risk to health in making these expedi-
tions, it would be wrong to minimize it. The reader
will, however, be aware that a number of these gentlemen
whose opinions we shall lay before him, passed success-
fully through their experiences; most of them attained
to an honoured and respected old age ; and the greater
number of them died quietly in their beds, like other
people, when the inevitable hour struck for them, as
it must do for all of us. As a rule, however, weakly
and delicate men should think well before exposing
themselves to unwonted hardships and exertions, or to
the influence of either great heat, or of cold, damp,
or inclement weather. Nevertheless, both in dry hot,

PRECAUTIONS WITH RESPECT TO HEALTH. 25

and in dry cold countries, many have been changed
from invalids into strong-, hale, and hardy men. We
have personally met, spoken to, and questioned such
men literally by hundreds in our South African Colonies,
in America, and elsewhere. These matters will, however,
be referred to more particularly hereafter.

We have made it a point throughout these pages
to insist, almost with obstinate iteration, upon what we
conceive to be the necessary precautions which ought
to be adopted by travellers in these matters, so that
a sojourn in a wild country, whether it be long or short,
which would otherwise, and in default of prudent
precautions, inevitably prove a life of hardship and
danger, may be made one of comparative ease and
comfort, nay, even of luxury — for it should always be
a maxim among travellers that no unnecessary hardship
should ever be incurred.

The object should be to make oneself as far as
possible at home in the wilderness, and he who makes
his way through a difficult country with a minimum
of expenditure of vital energy, is the best traveller.

That being so, " the pushing trader " will, we fear,
often find the suggestions offered in these pages either
unpalatable or unpracticable in his case.

To rush through a country at more than express
speed, as fast as the legs of horses, etc., can be got
to carry him, is a practice with which we must admit
we have little sympathy — and it must be obvious our
remarks are addressed to quite a different class of readers.
At the same time, it may be all quite right, and
even laudable, for a business man to hurry over the
ground as quickly as he can; in order that he may
get ahead of competitors, and make money for him-

26 THE PRACTICE OF TRAVELLING AGAINST TIME.

self and those dependent on him, as fast as possible.
That goes without saying — and in such cases we are
well aware that " Time is Money." All that we desire
to do is to guard ourselves against the objections
which the " Commercial Traveller " may find with what
we have to say to the man of leisure, the man of
science, the sportsman, or the invalid.

It is comprised in a few brief sentences: Never
over-do things. — Travel from place to place slowly,
rather than rapidly. — Make yourself as comfortable
as you can. — Make yourself, in short, at home in
the wilderness.

But above all, observe ! and make a note of what
you see at once, for the human mind is but a fallible
guide when recollection alone is trusted to.

Habits of observation stand first on the list of quali-
fications necessary to make a successful traveller, but to
give the data thus collected their utmost value, sleep
should seldom seal the eyes of the wayfarer before
a brief precis of the day's work has been jotted
down.

CHAPTER II.

RETROSPECTS OF THE EXPERIENCES OF CELEBRATED
TRAVELLERS AND HUNTERS.

Opinions of Captain Cornwallis Harris. Mr. Charles John Ander-
sen. Mr. Gordon Gumming. Sir Samuel Baker. Mr. "Walter
M. Kerr. Colonel Parker Gilmore. Major H. A. Levison. The
Hon. James Inglis. Mr. Charles Darwin. Dr. Georg Schweinfurth.
Mr. Richard Ford.

BEFORE entering upon the consideration of other
matters, it may not be amiss to place before the
reader some short extracts culled from the pages of
different authors, whose works contain paragraphs
testifying as to the feelings with which they look back
upon their career in the capacity either of travellers
or hunters.

These authors were most of them remarkable men
in their day and in their respective spheres, in one or
other of these capacities.

Captain Cornwallis Harris (Bombay Engineers) H.E.I.C.S.

" To all others I prefer a life of adventure, its very priva-
tions constituting an excitement adapted to my humour " —
" There was something soul-stirring and romantic in wander-
ing among these free-born denizens of the desert; realizing
as it were a new creation in regions hitherto seldom, if ever,
trodden by white man's foot " — " But in spite of all hardships
and privations, toilsome and tedious as our journey frequently
was, across deserts of utterly hopeless sterility, we were more
than amply repaid by the unparalleled magnificence of the

27

28 RETROSPECTS OF CELEBRATED TRAVELLERS.

sport we enjoyed, and I can safely aver that some of the
happiest days of my existence have been passed in the wilds
of Africa. They form a passage in my life which time can
never efface from the tablet of my recollection — a green spot
in memory's waste, to which in after years I shall ever revert
to with intense and unabating pleasure." *

Charles John Andersen (Swedish Traveller, Explorer, and

Naturalist).

(Writing of himself in the third person.)

— " It is more than probable that his career as an explorer
and pioneer to civilization and commerce, is terminated. Still
he would fain hope his humble exertions may not be without
their fruits. When he first arrived in Africa, he generally
travelled on foot, regardless of the heat. Indeed, he was
wont to vie with the natives in endurance — but now, owing
to the severe hardships he has undergone, his constitution is
undermined, and the foundation of a malady laid, that it is
feared he will carry with him till his death. Yet such is the
perseverance of human nature, that did circumstances permit,
he would return to this life of trial and privation." f

(And so he did return, and passed, as we have already
stated, some twenty-five years of his life travelling in
Africa, and finally died and was buried in the wilder-
ness, July 5, 1867.) §

Roualeyn Gordon Gumming of Altyre (African Tra-
veller and Hunter).

" During the many years I spent in the wilderness, my
waggon was my only home. Even this I often deserted,

* Wild Sports of Southern Africa (in 1836 and '37), by Captain
Cornwallis Harris, 3rd Edit., 1841, pp. 284-5.

j Lake Ngami, or Explorations and Discoveries during Four Years'
Wandering in the Wilds of South-Western Africa, by Charles John
Andersen, 2nd Edit., 1856 — concluding paragraph of Preface, p. v.

§ See, Notes of Travel in South Africa, by C. J. Andersen. Edited
after his death by L. Lloyd, 1875, p. 335.

RETROSPECTS OF CELEBRATED HUNTERS. 2Q

and alone, or attended by savages, proceeded on distant
hunting expeditions, leaving my few followers encamped round
my luggage. Days and nights have I passed in my solitary
hunting hole, near some drinking place, watching the majestic
carriage of the lion, the sagacious actions of the elephant,
and the curious instincts of the countless varieties of game
that have passed within a few yards of me, unaware of the
proximity of man." *

" As I rode along, in the intense excitement of the chase
I felt a glad feeling of unrestrained freedom, which was
common to me during my career in Africa, and notwith-
standing the many days and nights of toil and hardship
which I afterwards encountered, I shall ever refer to those
times as by far the brightest and happiest of my life." f

Sir Samuel Baker (Traveller, Hunter and Explorer).

(One of the discoverers of the sources of the Nile and
afterwards appointed, Feb. 1870, Governor- General of the
Soudan by Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt).

" The Bivouac in the wilderness has many charms, there
is a complete independence. The sentries are posted, and
the animals picketed and fed, and the fires arranged in a
complete circle around the entire party, men, animals, and
luggage, all being within the fiery ring — the sentries alone
being on the outside." §

"There is a peculiar delight, which passes all description,
in feeling thoroughly well-strung, mentally and physically, with
a good rifle in your hand, stalking quietly through a fine
country, on the look-out for anything — no matter what." **

* Five Years of a Winter's Life (1843 to 1848) in the Far Interior
of South Africa, by Roualeyn Gordon Gumming of Altyre, 1850, Vol. i
— concluding paragraph of Preface.

f Ibid. Vol. i, p. 63.

§ The Albert Nyanza, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, 1866.

** Eight Years in Ceylon, by Sir S. W. Baker, 1855.

30 RETROSPECTS OF AFRICAN EXPLORERS.

"These days will always be looked back to by me with
the greatest pleasure, and when the limbs become enfeebled
by time, the mind can still cling to scenes long past, with the
pleasure of youth." *

Mr. Walter M. Kerr, C.E. (Traveller and Explorer).

" To me there has always been, and I suppose ever will
be, a pronounced fascination m the circumstances of a genuine
wild life, far away, in the core of some marvellous region,
whose land has rarely been trodden by the foot of civilized
man, and whose story is unrevealed. " f

Colonel Parker Gilmore (Traveller, Explorer, and
Hunter).

" Despite the dangers and hardships, a hunter's life, par-
ticularly in the interior of Africa, has a wonderful attraction
for some people : in fact it asserts such a magnetic influence
over many that, having once enjoyed it, ever after they have
an irresistible craving to resume it." §

Major H. A. Levison (Traveller, Explorer, and Hunter).

" Bred up as a soldier and a hunter, since my boyhood,
I have been a wanderer over the face of the earth; leading
what some of my friends may term a vagabond life, which
I do not feel inclined to change, even now that the future
looks small in comparison with the past." **

The Hon. James Inglis (Indian Hunter and Sports-
man).

" In very truth, I at all events can say that having come
through many and varied experiences, having sounded nearly
every note of a busy life's vicissitudes, I look back to my
happy days of tent life, as a planter and pioneer of settlement,
with the most unalloyed feelings of satisfaction, and with a

* The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon, by Sir S. "W. Baker, 1854.
t The Far Interior (of Africa) by W. M. Kerr, C.E., 1 886.
§ Days and Nights by the Desert, by Parker Gilmore, 1887.
** The Old Shekarry, by Major H. A. Levison, 1866.

RETROSPECT OF A SCIENTIFIC TRAVELLER. 31

supreme longing that I could live them all over again."

The foregoing represent the feelings and opinions
of well-known hunters and travellers, but if we now
quote the impressions of a differently constituted mind,
we find the philosopher and man of science not one
whit less susceptible than other men to the solemn
grandeur of the wilderness, and in the midst of a life
devoted to laborious study, he pauses to add his tribute
of admiration:

Mr. Charles Robert Darwin (Philosopher, Naturalist,
etc., etc.)

" It has been said that the love of the chase is an inherent
delight in man, a relic of an instinctive passion. If so, I
am sure the pleasure of living in the open air, with the sky
for a roof, and the ground for a table, is part of the same
feeling: it is the savage returning to his wild and native habits.
I always look back to our boat journeys, and my land jour-
neys, when through unfrequented countries, with an extreme
delight, which no scenes of civilization could have created.
I do not doubt that every traveller must remember the glowing
sense of happiness which he experienced when he first breathed
in a foreign clime, where the civilized man had seldom or
never trod." f — "It is impossible (says a biographical sketch
of him) to overrate the influence of the voyages (in H. M. S.
Beagle) on Darwin's career. — He left England untried and
almost uneducated for science. — He returned a successful
collector, a practised and brilliant geologist, and with a wide
knowledge of zoology — and above all, he came back full
of the thoughts on evolution, etc." §

* Tent Life in Tiger Land, Twelve Years' Reminiscences by the
Hon. James Inglis, 1889.

•j" Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of
the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Leagle Round
the World (1831 to 1836), by Charles Darwin, Edit, of 1879, p. 505.

§ Dictionary of National Biography, Edited by Leslie Stephen,
Vol. xiv, p. 74.

32 - THE GREAT SOLITUDES OF NATURE.

There can be no doubt that the foundations of
Darwin's great career were laid as the direct result
of his experience of life in the wilderness by land and
sea, during which he was constantly studying the
phenomena of Nature as there witnessed by him. This
makes good what we have already said as to the value
of such experiences on the future life of the intelligent
traveller. It also will be interesting to note the
objects which seem to have made a particular impres-
sion upon the mind of the learned Darwin during the
period of nearly five years, over which his travels
extended. He tells us —

" Of individual objects perhaps nothing is more certain to
create astonishment than the first sight in his native haunts,
of a barbarian — of man in his lowest and most savage state.
I do not believe it is possible to describe, or paint, the
difference between savage and civilized man."

Presently he goes on to say — "Among the scenes which
are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity
the primeval forests, undefaced by the hand of man ; whether
those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant,
or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail.
Both are temples of the God of Nature : — no one can stand
in these solitudes unmoved and not feel that there is more
in man than the mere breath of his body. In calling up
the images of the past, I find that the plains of Patagonia
frequently cross before my eyes ; yet these plains are pronounced
by all, wretched and useless. They can be described only
by negative characters; without habitations, without water,
without trees, without mountains, they support merely a few
dwarf plants. Why then, and the case is not peculiar to
myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my
memory ? " *

* Journal of Researches, etc., p. 5°3-

THE SPLENDOUR OF TROPICAL SCENERY. 33

With respect to the special qualifications which Mr.
Darwin thinks most desirable in a traveller, he con-
siders that, " A traveller should be a botanist, for in
all views plants form the chief embellishment." *

While absorbed in the close study of every species
of object of scientific interest, the Great Naturalist was
nevertheless profoundly impressed with the wild beauty
of creation, as seen by him throughout his journeys,
especially so with the splendour of tropical scenery and
vegetation. We shall therefore offer no apology for
reproducing one such picture of this kind, bequeathed
to posterity by Mr. Darwin in his Journals : —

" It must be remembered that within the tropics, the wild
luxuriance of Nature is not lost, even in the vicinity of large
cities ; for the natural vegetation of the hedges and hill-sides
overpowers in picturesque effect the artificial labour of man. "
"It is a hopeless attempt to paint the general effect."
"Learned naturalists describe these scenes of the tropics
by naming a multitude of objects. But who from seeing a
plant in a herbarium can imagine the appearance when
growing in its native soil? Who from seeing choice plants
in a hot-house can magnify some into the dimensions of
forest trees, and crowd others into an entangled jungle?
Who, when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist
the gay exotic butterflies and singular cicadas, will associate
with these lifeless objects the ceaseless harsh music of the
latter, and the lazy flight of the former — the sure accom-
paniments of the still glowing noon-day of the tropics? It
is when the sun has attained its greatest height that such
scenes should be viewed : then the dense splendid foliage of
the mango hides the ground with its darkest shade, whilst
the upper branches are rendered, from the profusion of light,
of the most brilliant green."

* Journal of Researches, etc., p. 603.
VOL. I. 3

34 A BOTANIST IN THE GREAT AFRICAN WILDS.

" When walking quietly along the shady pathways, and
admiring each successive view, I wished to find language to
express my ideas. Epithet after epithet was found too weak
to convey to those who have not visited the intertropical
regions, the sensations of delight which the mind experiences."

"How great would be the desire in every admirer of
Nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of
another planet!— Yet to every person in Europe it may be
truly said that at the distance of only a few degrees from
his native soil, the glories of another world are opened to
him. In my last walk I stopped again and again to gaze on these
beauties, and endeavoured to fix in my mind for ever an
impression which I knew sooner or later must fail. The
form of the orange tree, the cocoa nut, the palm, the mango,
the tree fern, and the banana, will remain clear and separate ;
but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect
scene, must fade away. Yet they will leave, like a tale
heard in childhood, a picture full of .indistinct but most
beautiful figures." (Description of scenery at Bahia, Brazil,
and reflections thereon). *

Dr. Georg Schweinfurth (German Traveller and Explorer,
Scientific Botanist and Artist).

" Already have I expressed my happiness at having reached
the object of my cherished hopes — my satisfaction at thus
finding life to be with me an idyll of African Nature. — My
health was unimpaired, and never before had I been less
hindered in prosecuting my pursuits. I was left alone in the
temple of creation. The people around me were somewhat
embarrassing, but it did not much disturb the inner repose
of this still life. In sickness everything is sad, and the craving
for home is not to be suppressed ; but whoever, in the robust-
ness of health, can imbibe the fresh animation of the wilderness
will find that it stamps something of its unchanging verdure

* Journal of Researches, etc., by Chas. Darwin, Extracts from pp. 495
to 497.

PERMANENCY OF PLEASING RECOLLECTIONS. 35

upon his memory ; his imagination will elevate it to a paradise,
and the days spent there, will enroll themselves among the
^very happiest of his life." *

Mr. Richard Ford (English Traveller and Historical Writer).

" The pleasures of travelling are cheaply purchased by trifling
inconveniences, which may always be much lessened by fore-
thought. The expeditions teem with incident, adventure,
novelty, and means of obtaining insight into human nature;
-and form in after-life a perpetual fund of interesting recollec-
tion : All that was charming will then be remembered, and
the disagreeable, if not forgotten, will be disarmed of its
sting." f

* The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth, 1874, Vol. i.,
p. 224.

j Gatherings from Spain, by Richard Ford, 1846.

CHAPTER III.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON "THE CLIMATIC

Decisive Influence of Climate upon Fauna and Flora. " Heat " and
" Moisture " as Factors in Climate. Boundaries of Climatic Zones
subject to Variations. Difficulties in defining the Limits of Deserts^
Limits of the Ice Pack on the Ocean constantly shifting. Variations
of Climate between the Regions East and West of the Andes in South
America. The Theory of Climatic Zones not new. Nature and Arti-
ficial Management of Land. Vegetation destroying the Works of
Man. Sand Drifts on Deserts, burying Cities and Temples. The
Primeval Forests of Britain. The Great Cities of Antiquity as Deserted
Ruins. Metaphor of "The Spider's Web" of an Ancient Persian
Poet. Scriptural Description of a Ruined City. Land reverting to
" A State of Nature." The Climatic Charts of Physical Geographers.
The Evergreen Band of Equatorial Forest. The Great Prairie or
Steppe Regions. Tendency of Soil to revert to its Primeval Condi-
tion. Flora as a Clue to Climate. The Cocoa-nut. The Date Palm.
Characteristics of Climate determinable from a Collection of its Plants.
But Geographical Position no sure Guide to Flora. Deflection of
Isothermal Lines on Climatic Charts. Climates of Great Britain and
Labrador contrasted. Table of Madden's Climatic Zones and Their
Respective Boundaries. Table of Special Regions.

WHEN a traveller is about to visit a strange land,
the very first question which he asks himself
will naturally be: "What is the character of its
climate?" because the nature of his outfit, and the
whole of his subsequent arrangements will necessarily
depend upon that. So also, while investigating the
phenomena of Nature, we shall find almost every detail
of the landscape governed by the same considerations :
the character of the trees, plants, and animals, seen
in it, will of course, all be dependent upon the climate.
That being so, we need offer no further apology for

36

THE CLIMATIC ZONES. 37

placing a general survey of climate in the forefront
of our work — and in opening this branch of our sub-
ject, it may be desirable to commence with a short ex-
planation of what are called " The Climatic Zones. "

The two great factors in the regulation of climates,
briefly stated, may be regarded as heat, and moisture.
These attain their maximum at the equator. The
equatorial regions, therefore, have the highest mean
temperature of any part of the earth, and also, as we
shall presently show, the heaviest rainfall. Sometimes
this zone is spoken of by geographers as the Region
of Perpetual Rains, because for some distance on each
side of the equator heavy rains occur at short intervals
throughout the whole year. Beyond that again, both to
the northwards and southwards, we come to regions
where the rains become intermittent ; part of the year
being dry and hot, and the remainder subject to
periodic wet seasons.

Here we locate other zones, and so on, to denote
every well-marked change of climate that occurs, until
we reach the Polar regions, of almost perpetual cold.

It goes almost without saying, however, that there
are no fixed limits at which hard and fast lines can
be drawn round the earth, marking the exact points
where each substantial change of climate occurs.
Climates as we know, are variable, so that even in
the same district, they differ materially one year with
another. So also the boundaries of Climatic Zones,
wheresoever they may be placed, are apt to shift from
time to time, rendering it impossible to say with
certainty exactly where such zones begin or end. A
good example of this is to be found in the limits of
"The Desert Zone."

38 SHIFTING BOUNDARIES OF DESERTS.

Prima facie, it would seem that it ought to be very
easy to see where a desert begins, or where it comes
to an end; and yet it is not so: as a matter of actual
fact, it is one of the most difficult things possible to
lay down a limit to the desert that will stand the test
of criticism ; and for this reason, that the almost rainless
zone, which forms the desert, is periodically visited by rain
storms of extreme violence, as well as by more moderate
showers which produce a season of verdant growth,
however short it may be, so that the limits of the
desert are constantly shifting backwards and forwards.
What is at one period of the year an expanse of
absolutely sterile sand or clay, at another time is
covered with verdure, and cattle may be pastured
upon it.

In fixing the limits of the desert, or any other
zone, therefore, all that we aspire to do is to show
the approximate mean limits to which, as we humbly
conceive, the desert may be taken to extend.

But we cannot too emphatically point out that there
exists no hard and fast line anywhere in Nature, ex-
actly circumscribing the geographical limits of any of
her productions: all her transformations are gradual,
and pass one into the other so imperceptibly that no
absolute line of demarcation is visible. If we take
any of the phenomena of Nature, and carefully examine
its conditions, we shall find this the invariable rule.
Take a well-known case, such as that of the limits of
the Polar ice: Arctic navigators are well aware that
these limits are continually shifting; some years the
sea is open much farther towards the pole; while at
other times the ice extends a long way further out
into the ocean than it did the previous year. When

MOVEMENTS OF THE POLAR ICE. 39

therefore the geographer draws upon his map an ideal
line, marking the equatorial margin of the Polar ice,
it is well understood to signify that such is merely its
approximate mean limit during ordinary seasons, and
that it by no means presumes to fix an invariable line
from which the great ice movements never deviate
one way or the other.

The boundaries which we have ventured to fix to
each of our Climatic Zones are therefore to be under-
stood to be subject to similar conditions. In each case
we have been careful to set forth the reasons which
have seemed to warrant our decision, and also to ex-
plain, as far as that has been possible, the causes which
produce exceptional climatic conditions in particular
regions ; as for instance in South America : Why
should large portions of the western seaboard be
practically a rainless and treeless desert, while upon
the same parallel of latitude, upon its eastern and
central portions, there is a tremendous rainfall, and
the land is covered by impenetrable forests of the
most luxuriant growth? The reasons for this will be
apparent when we come to consider this question.
Fortunately, in this case, the causes of these wonderful
differences of climate are so manifest as to be ac-
cepted by geographers in general as furnishing a
complete explanation of this wonderful phenomenon.
The matter is merely referred to at present, however,
with a view to show that exceptional causes are apt
to produce exceptional effects in every part of the
world, which of course still further complicates the
difficulty of saying what are the limits of, say, the
Desert Zone, with any certainty in any part of the
world.

40 THE GREAT EQUATORIAL FOREST BELT.

The theory of Climatic Zones, though by no means
a new one, has in consequence been abandoned by
many geographers, as too uncertain to warrant its
general adoption.

And yet, when all is said and done, we hold it to
be impossible to close one's eyes to the fact that a
certain class of country does, in effect, form a belt
round the earth's circumference, with more or less
continuity almost everywhere. Nevertheless the theory
of Climatic Zones has failed to obtain general ac-
ceptance, because, as we humbly conceive, its advocates
have tried to prove too much, and desired to parcel out
the earth's surface into too great a number of regions,
differing from each other in too slight a degree to
be generally accepted among men regarding things
from different points of view.

Let us take a single instance of a belt such as we have
described: and we ask any thoughtful geographer, is
it not a fact that at the equator the earth's terrestrial
surface is circumscribed almost everywhere by an
evergreen forest of trees, which forms a dense and
almost impenetrable girdle around it at that point ?
It is true that through human agency this forest has
been destroyed at certain places near the Equator,
and that meadows and open country in consequence,
at present exist in these spots; but if so, the moment
that these lands are suffered to run wild, even for a
comparatively very short space of time, young trees
and bushes spring up with inconceivable rapidity, and
reassert the title of the wilderness.

This is the reason why we have chosen the Wil-
derness as the type of country which we purpose
to write about: because there the natural landscape

VEGETATION EFFACING THE WORKS OF MAN. 41

is seen as Nature intended it to be seen, before
it was diverted to other purposes foreign to her
design.

It is a remarkable fact how Nature resents these
changes. Man may continue steadily working for
ages, without limitation, to maintain a piece of ground
in a certain condition to suit his own purpose. Yet
the moment he gives up the contest Nature at once
proceeds to reassert her indefeasible title to the land,
and one after the other his works begin to dwindle
away and decay, until finally they are entirely effaced.
Future generations of travellers making their way
across the country find the wilderness again in full
possession of the disputed territory; if it was a forest
country, the tree growth has again occupied the
scenes of man's labours and aspirations, seeds have
germinated, and their roots have fixed themselves upon
his mouldering walls and have overturned his most
massive architectural monuments, destroying them in
many cases so completely that it is sometimes im-
possible even to trace with any degree of certainty
their original limits or design. The beast of prey
and the night-bird make their lairs in what were the
habitations of mankind.

So again, if it was a desert land and man has
reclaimed certain areas of ground from the sand, and
planted upon it his cities and his temples, feeding the
thirsty soil with water brought thither by construction
of canals or other means ; if in the vicissitudes of time
the human population become dispersed: the sand-drift
will infallibly seize its own again, and in the course
of years will bury every trace of human occupancy
under the onward movement of its sand-waves. Nu-

42 RUINED CITIES OF ANTIQUITY.

merous and striking illustrations of this are to be seen
in Egypt and elsewhere.

Arguing from analogy, therefore, we can have no
doubt that if the population of Great Britain from
any cause were to disappear, the country which is
situated in the Great Forest region of the Temperate
Zone would gradually resume the condition of a great
forest — what history teaches us it actually was in
ancient times. It might be supposed that with its
superabundant population and advanced civilization this
would be impossible. But as we know, the world
contains numerous instances of mighty nations, pos-
sessing an advanced civilization (as the remains of their
ancient works of art and architectural monuments
most clearly show) which have disappeared so completely
that their very name and language have now passed
into oblivion.

There are places where the country is covered, for
many square miles, with traces of a former super-
abundant population, including the ancient sites of great
cities, containing remains of magnificent temples, palaces,
and other extensive works, representing an enormous
expenditure of human skill and labour; where the
wilderness has so completely resumed its sway that the
whole district is now covered with almost impenetrable
forest, inhabited only by a few wandering families of
wild jungle people.

These spectacles of fallen greatness and depaiced
glory are eloquent and solemn object lessons to man-
kind, and exhibit in the most striking manner the
instability of human institutions. Their transitory
splendour, when contrasted with their present utter
desolation and loneliness, has been very beautifully

. ALLEGORY OF THE SPIDER'S WEB. 43

expressed, in the figurative language of the East, by
an epic poet of great renown in ancient Persia, in
these striking lines:

" The spider spins her web in the palace of Csesar ! " *

"The owl stands sentinel upon the watch-tower of
Afrasiab!" f

The same metaphor of the spider, silently weaving
her web in the palaces of the great, unheedful of the
vain pomp of regal magnificence, has, however, been
thus employed in the Book of Proverbs, of Solomon the
King, more than 1 600 years before the Christian Era :

" The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in Kings*
palaces." §

The picture of desolation presented by these ruined
cities, wherein wild beasts have made their dens and
rear their cubs upon the hearth-stone where women
used to rock their infants' cradles, while troops of merry
children romped and played in the now deserted streets,
has been painted with great dramatic force and beauty
in many passages of the Scripture, notably in the Book
of the Prophet Isaiah. Before we pass to the consider-
ation of other matters we shall take the liberty of
reproducing one of these picturesque descriptions :

* Literally in the original Persian, "The spider holds the veil,"
in allusion to the creature holding the gossamer threads with her
feet (See Sir William Jones's Persian Grammar, Edition of 1809,
p. 106).

•j- From " Shahmamah " or The Book of Kings, by Abu'l Kasim
Mansur — commonly known under the Nom de Plume of " Firdousi" —
a Persian poet, who lived about A.D. 322 to 411. \Afrasiab was a
king of Turan (now Turkestan) who invaded and took Persia, about
600 B.C., according to the ancient mythological records of that country]. —
(See the History of Persia, by Major-General Sir John M>lcolm, gov-
ernor of Bombay, published 1829, Vol. i, Chap, ii — also Appendix
to Ibid Vol. i, pp. 538 — 540. — See also Encycl. Brit., 9th edit, Vol. ix,
pp. 225 — 227, Article "Firdousi" among other authorities.

§ Pro-verbs xxx, verse 29.

44 THE SCRIPTURES ON A RUINED CITY.

"But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the
owl also and the raven shall dwell in it." *

" And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and
brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habita-
tion of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild beasts of
the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island,
and the satyr shall cry to his fellows; the screech-owl also
shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. There
shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and
gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be
gathered, everyone with her mate." f

This falling back of the sites of populous cities and
cultivated grounds into what is called a state of Nature
furnishes the strongest evidence of the existence of a
permanent characteristic tendency inherent in land to
reveiu to its original condition, whatever that may have
been. If it was a forest region the tendency, therefore,
is for trees to spring up spontaneously; if it was a
heathy moorland, the tendency is for the soil to
produce heather ; though every trace of heather may
have been extirpated by generations of steady, continuous
tillage.

These things can hardly fail to produce a deep im-
pression upon every thoughtful mind, and seem to
point to the conclusion that Nature has aplotted the
earth's surface into special regions, such as the forest,
the prairie, or the desert; and taking the map of the
world in one's hand, anybody possessing a fair know-
ledge of physical geography can see that these special
regions seem to extend in a more or less continuous
way, in the form of bands encircling the earth's ter-

•j- Isaiah xxxiv, part of verse 2.

§ Ibid, xxxiv, verses 13, 14, and 15.

THE GREAT ASIATIC STEPPE REGION. 45

restrial surface. These form what we have ventured
to call "The Climatic Zones." Some of them are
marked with exceeding distinctness. Notably, for
example, " The Great Forest Region of the Equatorial
Zone," of which we have already spoken. Again,
take the prairie, or Steppe Region : see the vast ex-
tent of these treeless plains in North America, and
again in the same parallel of latitude, right across
the great continent of Asia, and across parts, at all
events, of that of Europe — notably, for instance, in
Southern Russia. Then again these great plains re-
appear in a similar position in the southern hemisphere,
in the pampas of South America, and in the karroo
and grass veld of Southern Africa, though on account
of the great preponderance of ocean in that hemi-
sphere, their extent is very much smaller than in the
northern hemisphere.

So we might go on to show that, save and except in
certain exceptional districts, the whole earth is thus
laid out substantially in a series of climatic bands or
zones throughout its entire terrestrial extent; and
again, wherever exceptional regions do extend, form-
ing a breach in their continuity, in almost every case
there are evident reasons which make it apparent why
they should occur where we find them.

Moreover, these very exceptions to the general law
are in themselves in a pre-eminent degree suggestive
and instructive ; and show in terms that speak louder and
clearer than any words could do, that all these varia-
tions in the nature of a country depend upon climate.
The two great factors in climate, as we have said,
are heat and moisture. Where there is a damp at-
mosphere, the tendency is to produce arborescent

46 MOISTURE AND ARBORESCENT GROWTHS.

growths ; where the moisture is excessive, conditions
of soil being suitable, the tendency is to produce heavy
forest growths; where the rains are followed by a long
dry period, the tendency is to produce stunted trees,
or bush and jungle; where the winds are dry, and the
rains variable, the tendency is to produce treeless
plains with herbage only; where winds are dry and
rains wanting, a desert of course occurs. Such in
brief are the principal conditions which operate, as we
humbly venture to assert, to create the great system
of climatic zones. It may, however, be objected that
the division of these zones is really a botanical rather
than a climatic one : that is so to a great extent, be-
cause the truest test of climate is vegetation.

Tell a botanist what plants grow in a given district,
and he will tell you what its climate and mean tem-
perature should be, and whether it has a dry or a
moisture-laden atmosphere. — Let us take the cocoa-nut
(Cocos Nuciferd) as an example. If this tree grew
there, the climate must have been equatorial, the
atmosphere was hot, moist and equable, and the ele-
vation above sea-level did not exceed 2000 feet: that
being so the locality was probably near the sea board,
because the cocoa-nut is a sea-loving plant, very
sensitive to changes of temperature, so that on the
inland highlands where the temperature is subject to
variations, the tree could not survive. Or again, take
the date palm (Phoenix Dactyliferd); if that tree was
found there, it was the Desert Zone, with an extremely
dry atmosphere, with powerful suns, and an almost
rainless climate; but the subsoil contained water, and
a pit sunk near its foot would have found water,
perhaps of a brackish or salinous quality, but still

THE GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE OF PLANTS. 47

water of some kind at no great distance beneath the
surface. And so a skilled botanist would really be
able to tell more about the climate of a place, which
he had never seen, on being shown a collection of its
plants, than a careless or ill-educated observer, who
had resided for a considerable time in the locality :
just as a skilled anatomist will construct a close
imitation of the whole frame of an extinct animal, on
seeing a single important bone which formed part of
its body.

But though the botanist can form an excellent idea
respecting climate, etc., from the study of flora; an
attempt to guess at the probable character of flora,
from the geographical position of a country, might lead
to very erroneous conclusions, because the latitude of
a place by no means always governs its climate ; as it
might, prima facie, be expected to do.

On turning to the climatic chart of any atlas of
physical geography, the examination of it will show that
its isothermal lines are here and there curved out of
their regular course, on account of being deflected by
various local causes. The causes of these variations
involve technical questions which will be dealt with as
they arise in the course of this work; it will be
sufficient for the present to cite the marked deflection
of the isotherms over the British Islands, compared
with those over Labrador, as a notable instance in
point. These wide differences in their mean temperatures
are created, as it is now almost universally admitted,
by the set of ocean currents. Thus, the British Islands
are fully exposed to the influence of the " Gulf Stream,"
which carries a current of warm water directly upon
our coasts; whereas, as the chart of ocean currents

48 INFLUENCE OF OCEAN CURRENTS.

shows, the coasts of Labrador are bathed by an icy
stream, known as "The Hudson Bay Current,"* de-
scending from the arctic regions. These extensive
streams of warm and cold water, respectively, either
raise or lower the temperature of the air in their
vicinity, and thus produce great variations of climate
between these countries situated within nearly the same
parallels of latitude, which under the circumstances is
not much to be wondered at.

So again in almost every instance, where sharp curves
of the isotherms warn us of marked abnormal increase
or diminution in the temperature of a particular region,
local causes are apparent, which furnish very good
reasons why such peculiarities should occur. It would,
however, be out of place to enter into details respecting
these phenomena in a preliminary and explanatory
chapter upon the Climatic Zones generally; and we
shall close these remarks by giving a table in which
the name and locality of each of them is clearly indicated,
which will give our readers a general idea of our system.

The Climatic Zones, which girdle the earth, both
by land and sea, are six in number; and occur in
corresponding positions in both hemispheres : there are
therefore two examples of each ; one to the north, and
the other to the south of the equator.

We have ventured to fix their position and boundaries
(beginning from the equator), respectively, as follows:

i. THE GREAT FOREST REGION OF THE EQUA-
TORIAL ZONE.

* See, The Royal Atlas of Modern Geography by Alexander
Keith Johnson, Map 2, Chart of the World on Mercator's Projection
Showing the Direction of the Ocean Currents.

THE CLIMATIC ZONES. 49

This region comprises two belts of country, each
extending 15° from the Equator to the parallels of
Lat. 15° North and Lat. 15° South.

2. THE GREAT BUSH COUNTRY (OR JUNGLE
REGION).

This comprises two other belts, beginning at Lat. 15°
N. and Lat. 15° S., and extending to the 25th parallels
of North and South Latitude.

3. THE DESERT ZONE.

Comprising two belts extending from the' 2 5th to the
3oth parallels.

4. THE REGION OF THE GREAT PLAINS (THE
GREAT GRASS COUNTRY).

Comprising two belts extending from the 3oth to the
5oth parallels.

5. THE GREAT FOREST REGION OF THE TEM-
PERATE ZONE.

Comprising two belts extending from the 5oth parallel
to the circumpolar circles (Lat. 66° 3 2').

6. THE ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC ZONES.
Extending from the circumpolar circles — Lat. 66° 32'

North and South — to the Poles.

To these we must add kthree additional sections,
relative to special regions, which occur at different parts
of the earth's surface throughout each of the six pairs
of climatic zones, viz. :

THE GREAT MOUNTAIN REGIONS.

THE GREAT RIVER SYSTEMS.

THE GREAT TERRESTRIAL RESERVOIR : THE OCEAN.

Each of these last-named important sub -divisions,
as we shall presently have occasion to show, exercises
a vast influence upon the whole expanse of the ter-

VOL. I. 4

50 THE REALMS OF CELESTIAL SPACE.

restrial globe — influences which by no means cease to
play their part in the great economy of Nature when
we pass beyond the apparent limits of these regions.
When the mountains, for instance, sink down into the
plain, their climatic influence still extends over a vast
expanse of low-lands. When the rivers mingle with
the ocean, they are not lost. And though the Creator
has set bounds to the sea which its waves cannot
overpass, new rivers rise from its surface and are
carried by the winds back to the mountain slopes
from whence they took their sources.

CHAPTER IV.

TERRESTRIAL CLIMATES, TEMPERATURES, AND
ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES.

Value of a Knowledge of Climate to Travellers. Ignorance that
formerly Prevailed on this Subject. Examples from British Military
and Colonial Records. In the Worst Climate there is a Comparatively
Healthy Season. Slight Losses in Recent Expeditions, due to Going
in the Healthy Season. The Walcheren Expedition, Causes of the
Great Losses. Principal Factors in the Creation of Climate. Temperature
as Modified by Elevation. General Contour of the Earth's Surface.
Ratio of Temperature to Elevation. Mean Temperature of the Equatorial
Zone. Swampy and Unhealthy Coasts. The Highlands of the Interior.
Tropical Sanitary Stations. Climate of Mexico. Beauty and Luxuriance
•of Its Forest Scenes. The Tropical Rains. Yellow Fever. Sanatorium
of Jalapa. The Climatic Range of Yellow Fever. Yellow Fever at
Lisbon. In the West Indies and Brazil. Effects of " Moisture " on
Temperature. Depressing Effects of "Damp Heat." Dry Air and
Extreme Temperatures. Remarkable Instances of Great Heat. Dry
Air and Cool Nights. Coincidence of the Mahometan Faith with Dry,
Hot Climates. People of Colour. The Arabs. Influences of Climate
on the History of Man. Droughts. The Phenomena of Dry Atmosphere.
Therapeutic Effects of Dry Cold. " Equable Climates " necessarily
" Moist Climates." The Winds. Created by the Sun's Heat. The
Trade Winds. "The Doldrums." Land Winds. The Uses of Deserts.
Monsoons. Indian Droughts and Famines. Equatorial Currents in the
Celestial Altitudes. Rains. The Coming-up of a Sub-Tropical Rainstorm.
Outburst of an Equatorial Thunder Storm. Value of Forests in
Preventing Destructive Effects of Torrential Rains. Remarkable
Instances of Great Rainfalls. Sudden Inundations Caused by Torrential
Rains. The Coming down of the Great River Atbara. Danger of
Encamping in Dry River Beds. Great American Rainstorms. The
Coming down of an American Prairie Flood. Destruction of U.S.
Army Camps by Sudden Floods. Supposed Causes of These Floods.
Waterspout in Paris. Instances of Great Thunder Storms. Traveller
Killed by Lightning. Thirteen Oxen Struck Dead in a Heap. The Bursting
of the Indian Monsoon. Ideas of the Ancients on the Sources of Rain.
The Superior Waters Above the Firmament. The Teachings of Modern
Science upon Rain. The Vapour-Carrying Power of the Winds.
Probable Cause of Blue Colour of the Sky. Evaporation in Visible
Form. Great Atmospheric Disturbances. Tracks of Hurricanes Generally
Follow Areas of Extreme Temperatures. Revolving Storms. The
"Lull" of the Storm. Rules for Avoiding Cyclones at Sea. Force and

52 THE INFLUENCES OF CLIMATE.

Velocity of the Wind in Great Hurricanes. Indications of an Ap-
proaching Cyclone. The Great West-Indian Hurricane of October 1780.
Loss of a British Fleet. The Great Cyclone of 1703 in England.
Cyclone on the Brahmaputra in 1876, and Loss of 100,000 Lives.
Great Cyclone at the Mauritius in 1892. American Blizzards, or
Storms Attended by Intense Cold. Partial Destruction of U.S. Waggon
Train in a Blizzard. Buffalo Hunteis Frozen to Death. Terrible
Nature of Frostbite. Cause of Blizzards. The Great Blizzards of
March 1888. The New York Blizzard and the English Papers. An
English Blizzard. Possible Effects of a Great Storm in London. Dust
Storms. Cause of Moving Pillars of Sand in the Desert. How they
are Formed. Collapse of Dust Columns. The Army of Cambyses-
Alleged to Have Been thus Buried. Great Sand Storms in the Colorado
Desert, and in Algeria. The "Ascending" Form of Tornadoes. The
Horizontal Form. Tracks of Tornadoes through Forests. An English
Whirlwind. The Great Atmospheric Ocean. The Barometer. Cyclonic
Depressions. The Great Billows of the Atmospheric Ocean. Heavy
Falls of the Barometer. What They Indicate. Why Threatened
Storms Sometimes do not Occur.

NOWHERE do meteorological phenomena assume
more immediate importance to the individual man
than they do to the traveller in wild countries, whose
life for the most part is passed in the open air, or at
best under the shelter of a canvas tent. Hence it
comes that the thoughtful traveller by land and sea
has his attention continually drawn to the consideration
of some one or other of those phenomena of Nature
to which we desire to call attention in this chapter.

The influence of climate is felt, as we know, all
over the world. But experience shows that people
comfortably housed, and surrounded by all the refine-
ments of an ultra-civilization, have rarely either time
or inclination to bestow much thought upon the study
of the weather: and so it has come to pass, amid the
continual hurry and strain of the business of life, that
the science of meteorology has been more or less
neglected, even by men of science, until a comparatively
very recent date. The systematic observation of the

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES IN WILD LANDS. 53

weather for the purpose of foretelling the near approach
of dangerous atmospheric disturbances, may, in fact,
be said to have been initiated by the late Admiral
Fitzroy, distinguished in his earlier days by valuable
services in the survey of the coasts of South America,
and subsequently as the Commander of H.M.S. Beagle,
during her voyage round the world, undertaken for
the purpose of scientific research in the third decade
of the present century. He was accompanied throughout
the last named expedition by Charles Darwin, who
afterwards attained an imperishable renown in the
world of science as a naturalist, etc., and it is in no
wise straining the limits of probability, or of fact, to
assume that both these cultivated men laid the foun-
dations of future eminence in their respective spheres
while engaged in the daily contemplation of the pheno-
mena of Nature, during that eventful period (1831 to
1836); whether in examining the winds and tides, or
the animal inhabitants of the mighty deep ; or else in
traversing (as Mr. Darwin did) the almost totally un-
known wilderness of South America, together with
islands, and other sections of wild country visited by
the expedition.

Fitzroy especially, as the officer primarily responsible
for the safety of its personnel, must have been throughout
these years constantly employed in the consideration
of such questions as we now propose to glance at.
Upon the stormy and desolate coasts they were for the
greater part of the time engaged in surveying. This
subject of "The Wilderness and Its Tenants," must
also perforce have been to both gentlemen their peculiar
study, just in the same way as we propose to make
it ours throughout these pages.

54 INTENSITY OF TROPICAL RAINS.

Before entering upon the question of the climatic zones r
however, we think it desirable to open the subject with
a survey of the leading features of climates, as these
are exhibited to travellers proceeding from Europe to
tropical and other distant lands.

We shall also endeavour to describe the extraor-
dinary nature and intensity of some of the atmospheric
disturbances by which these regions are visited, of
which dwellers at home can form but a very faint and
imperfect idea : for though the climate of Great Britain
is variable and uncertain, it is in general free from
the exceeding violence of the rains, hurricanes, and
other storms, to which many foreign lands are subject.
It is highly desirable that all travellers should possess at
least a good general idea of these phenomena before
visiting such countries, as there is great art in laying
out an extended tour judiciously, so as to take the best
advantage of the proper seasons for visiting the dif-
ferent climates included in the programme, and thus
seeing them under the best and most agreeable conditions.
In these days, when such numbers of persons make
extended trips about the world, these matters assume a
constantly growing importance — as there is a healthy,
as well as an unhealthy season, in many of these coun-
tries. There can be no doubt that in former days
many travellers fell victims to the effects of climate,
either from visiting unhealthy places during the sickly
season, or because they were unacquainted with the
proper means of preserving health in such localities.

The extraordinary ignorance that prevailed in former
times upon these subjects, even among otherwise highly
educated men, can scarcely be conceived in these
comparatively enlightened days, though we unquestion-

FORMER IGNORANCE OF METEOROLOGY. 55

ably still have a very great deal to learn upon these
important branches of science. It might, for example,
reasonably have been supposed, that at all events
expeditions fitted out under the auspices of the leading
European governments would have been well advised
in these matters; but in general it was the very re-
verse, and immense loss of life was incurred from the
want of what now seem the most obvious precautions.

The records of British military and naval experiences
in Africa, and in the East and West Indies, are full
of warning and instruction in this respect. Sanitary
science was, however, a thing that can hardly be said
to have had any existence a few years ago.

Indeed, if an accurate return could be obtained of
the thousands of lives that have been sacrificed to
incompetence and ignorance of the elementary rules
of this science, it would be one of the most appalling
documents that has ever been published — and in defence
of British officers it may be stated (if that can be of
any satisfaction to us) that French records show that
they did not do these things one whit better there. *

In the first place it was the general opinion in former
days that strategic considerations often obliged troops
to be quartered in low-lying, unhealthy positions, when
a comparatively short march to the hills would, in
many cases, have kept their men in good health and
condition, ready at any moment to descend upon the
plains, and act with the vigour and decision of which
healthy men alone are capable.

It is true that under the stress of actual war this
might not always have been practicable; but in these

* The French invasion of Madagascar in 1895 ^s a g°°d modern
instance in point.

56 .THE SICKLY SEASONS.

days it seems hard to conceive that any considerations
of this kind could have been held to justify the reten-
tion of Europeans, year after year, in time of peace,
in pestilential quarters, when so obvious a means of
preserving health existed ; but it is unfortunately only
through losses and sufferings that men are ever taught
to reflect.

Instances of this kind might be multiplied almost
without end, were it desirable to do so, which show
that, in the words of Sir James Martin, a well-known
Indian medical authority on these matters, it is not an
exaggeration of the facts to say that, " with our com-
manders and statesmen, it has never been the disaster,
or the loss of an army, but always the accusation of
having caused it, that has disturbed their serenity. " *

The fact is, in every country, however bad a repu-
tation its climate may bear, there is always a healthy
season, as well as a sickly one — and the great art for
travellers and others is to know how to time their
movements so as to avoid the latter, by selecting the
proper moment for pushing rapidly through the un-
healthy regions, to the comparatively healthy highlands
beyond, before the bad season returns.

Generally speaking, there can be no doubt that for
a traveller such an arrangement is perfectly feasible,
provided, of course, that a man is his own master, and
that the claims of business, or of duty, do not intervene
to hamper his movements. The question is peculiarly
one of arrangement and organization, every detail of
which requires to be thought out beforehand, and it

* The Influence of Tropical Climate in Producing Disease of
Europeans, by Sir James R. Martin, M.D., of the Indian Medical
Council, 2nd Edit. 1861, p. 199.

MILITARY EXPEDITIONS INTO WILD LANDS. 57

is the capacity for exercising this discretion aright
which constitutes the true "Art of Travel." That it
is perfectly possible to secure these results under a
proper system of management, even when directing
the march of large bodies of men, under the stress of
actual warfare, is conclusively proved by the results
of several of our recent military expeditions.

British officers are now all of them highly trained,
and often exceedingly scientific soldiers ; and probably
few people will be disposed to deny, without in the
slightest degree depreciating the merits of our com-
manders in former days, that these recent triumphs
are largely to be attributed to the judicious arrangements
made for these expeditions, and the higher standard
of education maintained among the officers of the
present day over their predecessors of a generation
or two ago. The older commanders acted according
to their lights, and the state of knowledge of the times
they lived in. The modern expeditions to which refer-
ence is made, are, ist, the Abyssinian Campaign and
march to Magdala, under the late Lord Napier, in
1867 — 8; 2ndly, the Red River expedition to Fort
Garry, under Lord Wolseley, in 1870; and 3rdly the
Ashanti War and expedition to Coomassie, under the
same commander, in 1873.* In each of these cases, the
difficulties to be surmounted proceeded from the climate,
and the Wilderness. In both the African expeditions
the climatic dangers were of course, heat, and malarial
fever; while in that to Fort Garry it was the advent
of the snows of winter and the general inclemency of

* Since these lines were written a second march to Coomassie has
been performed in the early part of 1896, with equal success, under Maj.-
Gen. Sir Francis Scott.

58 ABYSSINIA AND ASHANTI.

the weather; but in all three, a wise selection of the
proper moment for starting, with adequate preparations
made beforehand, for the supply of the necessary stores,
combined subsequently with a vigorous prosecution of
the objects of the expedition in sufficient force to ensure
success — followed by an immediate withdrawal the
instant this had been realized — enabled the commanders
to bring1 them to a triumphant conclusion with com-
paratively trivial loss.

Those who witnessed the departure of the troops for
Abyssinia and Ashanti will, however, doubtless remem-
ber the dismal foreboding with which the deadly nature
of the climate was regarded. It is only necessary to
refer to the files of the newspapers of the day to
realize how strong a hold this view had taken upon
the public mind.

Many people thought that very few of those who
went out would ever return — nor can it be said that
these fears were altogether groundless, for judging
from the experiences of former expeditions at the end
of the last and the beginning of the present century,
very great losses seemed not improbable. But, by
going at the right time, in the right manner, and
lastly by getting away again in time, as we have
pointed out, these disasters were avoided.

It will merely be necessary to refer to a single one
of the many cases where in former times these things
were done with an entire disregard to these con-
siderations, to show the appalling consequences which
ignorance and incompetence in such matters are almost
certain to entail.

We shall select the case of the Walcheren Expe-
dition of 1809.

THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION. 59

The objective point, in this instance, was no pestilen-
tial African jungle, sweltering under the rays of a
vertical sun ; but some fortresses within a short sail
of the English coasts, on the mouth of the Scheldt,
upon the Dutch shores. This expedition was one of
the most powerful and admirably disciplined forces
that has ever sailed from the shores of this country,

" consisting of 35 ships of the line, with 200 smaller ships,
and 40,000 men under the Earl of Chatham. The fleet,
which was commanded by Sir Richard Strachan, with troopships
under its protection, sailed from England July 28, 1809"*—
"landed July 3ist and August ist, and by the loth of Octo-
ber, 587 per 1000 men had fallen sick, and 142 per 1000
had died." f

The moment chosen for embarking this force was
during the most unhealthy period of the year, to a
place which, though situated in Europe, was of well-
known malarious reputation, where a Scotch regiment
in the Dutch service had been known to bury their
whole number in three years, and where the French
army lost annually one third of those employed, thus
justifying the exclamation of Napoleon, on hearing that
the English had occupied the island of Walcheren,
" Only keep them in check, and the bad air and fevers
will soon destroy their armies. "§ And so in fact it
did, for,

" from a Parliamentary return it appears that 7000 had been
lost in the expedition, and that nearly half the troops en-
gaged in it brought home with them the seeds of a distemper,

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates.

j Sir James R. Martin, The Influence of Tropical Climates in the
Production of Disease, 2nd Edition, 1861, p. 275.
§ Ibid., p. 275.

60 EFFECTS OF ELEVATION ON CLIMATE.

which few were able entirely to shake off, during the re-
mainder of their lives " *— and " the number of sick which
were returned to England at various times, from Walcheren,
amounted to 12,863." t

All this clearly shows that by neglect of sanitary
precautions even a European climate may prove
deadly.

Of course, in considering the question of " climate, "
it would be impracticable to discuss that of each par-
ticular country, or region, separately. The most that
we can hope to do is to offer a few suggestions and
remarks, which we trust may contribute to a right
understanding of this important subject.

The best index to a climate will of course be the
meteorological record of its weather, and the range of
its temperature, extending over a series of years;
because, as we know, in many places the climate
varies greatly from year to year — and the further we
go away from the Equator, the more considerable as
a rule are these variations. It must also be remem-
bered that climate depends upon a number of different
considerations besides that of latitude — among the
principal of which are elevation, and the quantity of
moisture contained in the atmosphere. Temperature,
which is such an all-important factor in the climate
of a place, is mainly dependent upon these circum-
stances. We propose therefore to say a few words
upon this question of " Elevation " in its relation to
climate.

Now, the natural contour of the ground in every

* Alison's History of Europe, 2nd Edit. 1885, Vol. xiii, Chapter 60.
f Parliamentary Papers No. 24 — Parliamentary Debates xv. 23.
App. quoted from ibid.

THE CONTOUR OF GREAT CONTINENTS. 6 1

country, and throughout every continent, is to a certain
extent based upon similar lines — namely, that the land,
rising from zero upon the coast line, gradually ascends,
attaining to considerable altitude in the interior. There-
fore the larger the area of a continent, the general
presumption is the greater will be the elevation of
its highlands.

Where this is not so, it must be obvious that except
in waterless regions, the drainage would be so imper-
fect, that were the country perfectly flat, its interior
would become a region of swamps and morasses;
while depressions below the general level of the country
would gradually fill with water, and form vast inland
lakes or seas. We have good examples of this in the
great lakes of North America and in the Caspian Sea
in Asia, the level of which is fixed on the Russian
ordinance map as 86 feet below that of the Black Sea.
While in the waterless area of the Great Sahara of
Northern Africa, it is stated on what is believed to be
good authority, that one of these dry depressions
actually does exist, needing only a canal from the
Mediterranean to convert it into an inland sea, in the
heart of a burning waste of sand and stones. *

The immense variations of climate due to elevation
are well known. It has been variously estimated in
what ratio temperature is affected by altitude. Baron
Humboldt fixes it as amounting to a fall of i degree
Fahr. in temperature for every 344 feet of elevation.
Within the tropics, subsequent researches have, however,

* " According to Monsieur Roudaire, the author of the scheme for
flooding the Sahara, it is possible to create an inland sea, with an
average depth of 78 feet and an area of 3100 square miles, or about
fourteen times the size of the Lake of Geneva." — Encyclop. Brit., gth
Edit., Vol. xxi. p. 151.

62 THE LINE OF PERPETUAL SNOWS.

shown that it decreases in a considerably greater ratio
as the altitude increases, and it may be taken as an
ascertained fact that in the intertropical regions the
limit of the line of perpetual snow lies at about 16,000
feet above the level of the sea. "In the Bolivian
Andes," for instance, "the snow line is fixed at this
point," * and observations taken in Mexico and other
places, have given results almost identical.

Descending from this extreme elevation we have
every gradation of climate, down to the normal tem-
perature of the Equatorial zone, amounting to about
86° Fahr. as the mean shade temperature of the day,
at sea-level, throughout the year — the most characteristic
feature of this region being the wonderful uniformity
of its temperature — "As a general rule the greatest
heat of the day does not exceed 90° or 91° Fahr.,
while it seldom falls during the night below 74° Fahr." f
but " the usual daily range of the thermometer is only
a little more than 11° Fahr." §

The hottest places in the world, that is to say, those
places where the mean temperature of the year stands
highest, are mostly situated in these regions upon, or
adjacent to, the margin of the sea. In saying so, we
wish to guard against misconception : we refer therefore
at present, let it be distinctly understood, to the mean
temperature only — because those places where the most
intense heats are prevalent, at certain seasons, are
usually subject to extreme ranges of temperature, being
intensely hot at one time, and bitterly cold at others.

* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Central
and South America, 1878, edited by H. W. Bates, p. 207.
f Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 3.
§ Ibid. p. 4.

SWAMPY COAST LINES. 63

This, however, is a matter to which we shall refer
more at length hereafter.

The flat character which the land is known to assume
upon the seaboard of many countries, accounts for the
formation of extensive areas of swampy land in such
localities. Now it may be accepted as a matter of
ascertained fact, that wherever stagnant water is
associated with a powerful sun, malarial diseases are
always prevalent — and therefore as a rule we find the
coast line of most tropical countries is unhealthy; and
in many cases it may even be considered deadly to
Europeans, at certain seasons.

But as we penetrate into the interior and ascend the
highlands, the climate in general becomes compara-
tively healthy. We shall here confine our remarks to
the case of tropical countries, as the climates of temperate
regions call for no particular notice in this respect:
notwithstanding the great mortality, already referred
to, in the Walcheren Expedition, where a number of
circumstances point to the conclusion that the malarial
affections were more or less complicated by those
of a typhoid character, probably due, not to solely
climatic influences, but to a contamination of the water
supply.

The land upon the seaboard, as we have pointed out,
often rises very gradually from the coast, and therefore
in tropical regions a wide belt of unhealthy country,
generally clothed with dense forests, has to be traversed
before the highlands can be reached. The coasts of the
African continent, especially those of the west coast,
largely partake of this character. This has constituted
one of the difficulties of African travel, which has contri-
buted probably more than anything else to establish

64 TROPICAL HIGHLANDS.

an exaggerated notion of its unhealthy character.
But as means of communication improve, affording
facilities for pushing rapidly in to the elevated table-
lands of the interior, we venture to predict that we
shall hear less of the supposed peculiarly deadly na-
ture of the African climate.

In other more favoured regions of the tropical world,
the mountain ranges of the interior throw out spurs
towards the coast, so that sometimes a very short
journey brings the traveller to high and healthy sta-
tions, where in the midst of a delicious climate, closely
resembling that of a perennial spring, he can look
down upon the fertile lowlands, clothed in all the
magnificence of tropical vegetation, and reside in
safety, as long as he pleases, above the reach of their
baneful vapours. Some of those charming spots may
be set down (so far as climate is concerned) as the
nearest approach that can be found upon earth to a
terrestrial Paradise where flowers perpetually bloom.

The tropical regions of Central and South America
have been specially favoured by Nature in this respect,
and nowhere is this more the case than in the Repub-
lic of Mexico, which is at once one of the richest and
most beautiful countries in the world. The effects of
elevation in modifying climate are there exhibited
under such striking conditions that we could not do
better than give a short sketch of the climate of Mexico,
as a good illustration of tropical nature in general.

Mexico is divided by the natives into three zones —
the "Tierra Caliente " (or hot zone), the " Tierra
Templada" (temperate), and " Fria " (cold). The
Tierra Caliente comprises all the low-lying, hot,
damp regions on the seaboard, upon the east

MEXICAN CLIMATES. 65

and west coasts as well as in Yucatan and elsewhere.
It extends to 3000 feet above sea-level, and almost
all the choicest treasures of tropical vegetation flourish
there in the greatest luxuriance.

"Of 114 species of trees and cabinet woods, 17 oil-bearing
plants, and over 60 medicinal plants and dyewoods, indige-
nous to Mexico, and often differing specifically from kindred
varieties in Central and South America, by far the greater
part are represented in the 'Tierra Caliente'." *

The wonderful beauty and luxuriance of some of
the Mexican forest scenes can hardly fail to strike
even the most superficial observer ; and in the " Campo "
or more open country, it is quite common to find small
farmers raising on their own ground, and in the imme-
diate vicinity of their houses, almost everything a man
can want for food or raiment: sugar, coffee, cotton,
bamboos, etc., etc.

"The mean annual temperature is from 77° to 82° Fahr.,
the extremes ranging from 59° to 104° F. The dry season
(Estacion Seca) usually lasts from October till the middle of
May; and the rainy season (Estacion de las aguas) from the
middle of May till the end of September; but the greater
or less regularity of the rainy season depends exclusively on
the position and mean elevation of each locality. The showers
generally last till midnight, leaving the early morning clear
and bright. Besides the constant summer rainfall, there are
also occasional storms and showers from December to February,
called the 'Aguas Nieves' (snow rains). The rains as a
rule begin first on the Atlantic seaboard, gradually spread-
ing westward in the time of the trade winds." f

Unfortunately this region is unhealthy to Europeans,

* Encyclop. Brit., gth Edit., Vol. xvi. p. 217 (Article "Mexico").
f Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Central
and South America. Edited by H. W. Bates, 1878, pp. 73 to 78.

VOL. I. 5

66 YELLOW FEVER.

malarial fevers of severe type being common; yellow
fever and black vomit being also here endemic. " Vomito "
as it is called, generally begins about April, when the
hot weather sets in, and lasts till October.

Vera Cruz,* the usual port for entering the Repub-
lic, from the eastward, " is one of the most unhealthy
places on the globe." f When the author last visited
it, the jungle came up to within a short distance of
the outskirts of the town, and numbers of turkey
buzzards lived among the houses and walked in flocks
about the streets.

But fortunately — in illustration of what we have
already said as to the possibility of being sometimes
able to pass rapidly through an unhealthy district on
the coast, to a high and healthy station inland — even
before the days of railways, all that the prudent
traveller needed to do in this case in order to avoid
the sickly season, was to proceed some twelve hours
up the country to Jalapa, a distance of about 52 miles
by the old trail, leading mostly through the forest and
jungle. Since 1870, however, a railway, making a
detour up to about 70 miles, makes the matter more
easy still — and at Jalapa, which lies within the Tierra
Templada, some 4500 feet above the sea-level, a
delicious climate, combined with magnificent scenery,
can be enjoyed, very little warmer than an ordinary
English summer day, above the reach of the dreaded
"Yellow Jack." It is true that people have died
of yellow fever at Jalapa, as they have sometimes done
at the quarantine stations in England, but they were
persons who came up there from the Tierra Caliente,

* Vera Cruz., Lat. 19° n' 54" N., Long. 96° 8' o" W.
•j- Stanford's Compendium, p. 78.

CLIMATIC RANGE OF YELLOW FEVER. 67

with the infection upon them, and the disease did not
spread to the residents of Jalapa. As Sir James Martin
has pointed out — "It would seem that the diseases of
tropical climates, like certain vegetable productions,
are restricted to certain altitudes and particular degrees
of temperature." *

There can be no doubt that this is so, though the
confidence of the public in this assertion is from time
to time shaken by the occurrence of these cases, brought
up to the hills by persons in whose systems the
disease is already latent. But to give, if possible, still
greater emphasis to Sir James Martin's maxim, we may
here mention the very remarkable fact that the range
of altitude to which yellow fever ascends in Mexico
and other places, is found to be coincident with that
of certain plants. In the present instance it has been
ascertained that as a rule, " this disease ceases at that
altitude at which the Mexican oak ( Quercus Xalapensis)
commences to appear, that is at 2750 feet." f

Now, it is well known that temperature is the con-
dition which, more than anything else, governs the
range of plant life — and though the matter is by no
means as yet very well understood, many of these
diseases of malarial origin are supposed to be dependent
upon germs of a parasitic origin, and, according to
competent authority, yellow fever " is dependent for
its origin and spread, upon a temperature not lower
than 70° Fahr." §

At lower temperatures therefore, it is probable that

* The Influence of Tropical Climate in Producing Disease, by Sir
James Martin, 2nd edit, 1861, p. 283.

f Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Central
and South America. Edited by H. W. Bates, 1878, p. 73.

§ Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, p. 1798; Article "Yellow Fever."

68 YELLOW FEVER AT LISBON.

these germs become inactive; and this view receives
considerable support from the well-known fact that the
mortality due to this disease always largely diminishes
upon the occurrence of sudden and well-marked atmo-
spheric disturbances — such as heavy rains, storms, or a
fall in the temperature. But wherever there are popu-
lous sea-ports or other towns in low-lying situations —
as long as the summer temperature keeps up sufficiently
high (even though it be for a single season of excep-
tional heat) — we may on the other hand pretty safely
assert that the place is never secure from the possible
inroads of this terrible pestilence.

We may quote, for instance, the case (amongst
others) of the fearful outbreak of epidemic yellow
fever at Lisbon, at the close of a very hot summer,
in October and November 1859, which attacked nearly
1 9,000 people, and carried off some 6,000 of the population
living in and around the city, many of them being
persons of the upper classes. On the whole, this is
the most disastrous epidemic of this fell disease which
has visited Europe during the century.

We have dwelt somewhat at length upon this subject,
because yellow fever forms a constant bugbear to all
European travellers and residents, throughout tropical
America, while the range of this malady seems to be
peculiarly one dependent upon such questions of
elevation and temperature as we have just been con-
sidering. And the rule that holds good in Mexico
seems generally to maintain itself under similar con-
ditions elsewhere, notwithstanding that some exceptions
are alleged to haVe occurred, owing to special circum-
stances, in Peru and elsewhere in South America.
All that we shall venture to say on this head is that

HILL SANITARIA. 69

in the absence of considerably stronger evidence we
should hesitate to receive them as conclusive, for a
number of reasons, which it would be too long to go
into at present— especially as it is notorious that false
alarms have from time to time been raised about sup-
posed outbreaks of yellow fewer, which have after-
wards turned out to be typhus, or some other form of
outward febrile affections.

In the West Indies we may point to the hill stations
of Jamaica and San Domingo, which have thus far
proved to be exempt from this scourge. Another
instance is met with in Brazil, near Rio Janeiro, itself
a hot and unhealthy place at certain seasons, with
defective sanitary arrangements, from which a short
journey, in like manner, takes the traveller through
lovely scenery to Petropolis, which at an elevation of
some 2400 feet above sea-level, has thus far also
proved exempt from epidemics of this disease. Similar
cases might be multiplied —but we pass on to the
consideration of another important factor in climate,
namely, the effect of moisture in the form of atmo-
spheric vapour. According to the Encyclopeedia Bri-
tannica, " Climate is practically determined by the
temperature and moisture of the air, and those in their
turn are dependent on the prevailing winds, which
are charged with the temperature and moisture of the
regions they have traversed." *

But these conditions are constantly modified, as we
have already pointed out, by the elevation of the land
above sea-level. It is, however, only when we come
to contrast the effects of a dry with those of a humid

* Encycl. Brit. 9th edit. Vol. xvi, 1883, p. 114.

70 CLIMATE OF BATAVIA.

atmosphere that we realize the enormous influence
which moisture has in modifying climate by check-
ing the radiation of heat. In hot, damp climates, such as
that of the Equatorial Zone for instance, it is the means
whereby the night temperature is kept up to nearly
the same point as that of the day. Thus, at Bataviar
" the usual daily range of the thermometer averages
only a little more than 1 1 ° Fahr. : being 12° 6X in
September, when it is greatest, and only 8° i' in
January, when it is least" * — the heat of the day
being at the same time so moderated by the atmo-
sphere, that it is rarely very hot; the very high tem-
peratures met with in dry regions being here totally
unknown.

During the fifteen years, 1866 to 1879, both inclusive,

"the greatest maximum temperature (in November 1877) was
96° 8' Fahr., and the lowest minimum 66° 69' F. (in Sep-
tember 1877) and the mean temperature for the same period
was 78° 69' F. It is this long unbroken continuity of high
temperatures which proves trying to the European constitu-
tion, for the new-comer seldom feels himself much oppressed
by the heat." f

The great reason why hot damp climates are so trying
to Europeans, is because of the great heat of the night,
the atmosphere being always precisely like that of a
plant stove or orchid house at home. In fact the
object of these structures is, as we know, to create an
artificial atmosphere similar in all respects to that of
the native habitat of the plants intended to be grown
therein; and in some of the most trying of these
climates the natural condition of the atmosphere is

* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. "Wallace, 1878, p. 4.

\ Encyclop. Brit. 9th edit. Vol. xiii. p. 60 1; Article "Java."

HOT EQUATORIAL NIGHTS. 71

often as still and hot as that found inside one of these
houses. The great heat of the night, therefore, prevents
many people who feel the heat greatly, from obtaining
sound and refreshing sleep. The minimum tempera-
ture of the 24 hours, it must be remembered, merely
as a rule represents that of the last hour or two before
sunrise, and by no means that of the greater part of
the night, during which it stands considerably higher.
Sound sleep is therefore in many cases only enjoyed
during the morning hours: — this serious matter is a
frequent cause of trouble in these climates.

On the other hand, the intense solar temperatures
which we hear of as being registered occasionally, do
not as a rule occur in the intertropical regions at
all. Where high temperatures, such as those exceeding
100° F. in the shade, do occur in the tropics, they
usually do so in dry districts, such as the deserts of
the Soudan, during the prevalence of hot winds, and
under circumstances when the atmosphere ceases to
exert that power with which it is endowed, in moister
regions, of tempering the excessive heats, in consequence
of the absence of aqueous vapour; or the temperature
may be affected by the refraction of heat from sand,
rocks, and other exceptional causes : and thus, phe-
nomenally high temperatures may be produced.

The highest solar temperatures generally occur in
the zones of dry country which extend in belts around
the earth wherever there is land, somewhat to the
northward of the Tropic of Cancer, and to the south-
ward of the Tropic of the Capricorn. These therefore
may be regarded as the zones of maximum solar
temperatures. Or possibly, it may be, still further to
the north and south, extreme heats may occur, on

72 PHENOMENALLY HIGH TEMPERATURES.

occasional days, even in places situated in the tem-
perate zones. These cases are, however, of course
entirely exceptional.

Some of these extreme temperatures which have
occasionally been registered, are so extraordinary, that
it may be desirable to quote a few instances of what
great heat can occasionally be like. South Australia
and Victoria, for instance are

" subject to hot winds from the interior resembling the blast from
a furnace, and the thermometer rises to 115° Fahr. and
occasionally even higher." * " In the desert interior these hot
winds are still more severe. On one occasion Captain Sturt
hung a thermometer on a tree shaded from the sun and
wind, and it was graduated to 127° Fahr., yet the mercury
rose till it burst the tube. The heat therefore must have
been at least 128° Fahr., which if long continued, would
certainly destroy life. For three months Capt. Sturt found
the mean temperature to exceed 101° Fahr. in the shade.
Every screw came out of their boxes, the horn handles of
instruments and combs split up into fine laminae, the lead
dropped out of their pencils, the wool of sheep ceased to
grow, and their finger nails became brittle as glass." f In
Sindh also — " We have a climate of intense heat from March
to November ; during the six hottest months in the year the
mean temperature in the shade is given as 98° 5' Fahr., but
in Upper Sindh the thermometer sometimes registers 130°
Fahr. in the shade." §

* During one of these hot winds, within our own experience, in
Australia, all china and glass in closed and shaded rooms felt hot to
the hand, as if it had been lately placed near a fire — all water in jugs
was quite hot — all bedclothes, clothing, etc., felt as if they had been
recently warmed before a fire. Everything in fact assumed a certain
temperature approximate to that of the atmosphere.

j- Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia.
Edited by Alfred R. Wallace, 1883, p. 17 and following pages.

§ Murray's Handbook for the Bombay Residency, 1881, p. 2.

THE INDIAN HOT SEASON. 73

All over the plains of Northern India, as is well
known, periods of intense heat are common, indeed
according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "The
heat of the great plain of Northern India is not
surpassed by any other part of the earth, rising
in the hottest months to more than 110° Fahr." *
The meaning of this we take to be that the intense
solar temperatures are here kept up longer than else-
where.

Speaking on the same subject, Captain Rice, the
well-known Indian sporting authority/remarks respecting
the intense heats experienced during the hot season
in India that —

" It is almost impossible for those who have never ex-
perienced it to conceive how terribly hot the rocks and stony
ground exposed to the sun become. So much so, that the
hand cannot be kept on one particular spot for even five
seconds, without one feeling glad enough to remove it. So
the guns, if placed on the ground for even a few minutes,
become so dreadfully hot that it is distinctly painful to handle
the metal. If obliged to lie, or sit down, on hot rocks, it is
absolutely necessary to have some protection first spread over
the burning ground." f

Then as regards cases of occasional extreme tempera-
tures occurring in the temperate zone, we may content
ourselves with a single instance reported at Omaha in
the United States. The City of Omaha, it seems,

"had the thermometer at 120° F., in the coolest places to
be found, for several days, during the summer of 1874:
while the winter temperature of the same years sent the

* Enclyp. Brit., Qth Edit., Vol. xi, p. 829.

f Tiger Shooting in India, by William Rice, Lieut. 25th Bombay
N.I. 1887.

74 INTENSE DESERT HEATS.

mercury down to —28° F., a yearly variation of 149°." *

Then, as we have stated in the Soudan and other
parts of Northern Africa, in the great Sahara, etc.,
very extreme temperatures are occasionally recorded,
due in a great measure, there can be no doubt, to
refraction of heat from the bare and stony surface :
but above all, we cannot too often insist upon it, to
the dry condition of the atmosphere. Solimos in his
" Desert Life " informs us that the " sand temperature
one day marked 146° Fahr.— temperatures of 170°
Fahr. were also found near Jaffa ; and Duveyrier found
the Sahara one day over 182° Fahr. f " But these would
propably be sun temperatures. On other occasions he
tells us

" Matches were lit by touching the sand with them " §
— "Blankets drawn one over another or even slightly
shifted, blazed up like sheet lightning" **— "The heat
was 1 09° Fahr. among clothes in a trunk, and ui° Fahr.
in the wind: combs, vulcanite, bone or horn, became brittle
and useless." ft

Sir Samuel Baker fully confirms many of these
facts ; he also found woollen clothes and blankets gave
off a sheet of flame when suddenly drawn apart, accom-
panied by moderately loud reports, and he tells us that
in the desert between Korosko and Abu Hamed in
Upper Egypt the thermometer registered

"114° Fahr. in the shade and 137° F. in the sun, in May,
during the hot season. All woodwork is warped, ivory knife

* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, by Lieut.-Col. Dodge,
U.S.A., 1877, p. 42.

f Desert Life, by B. Solimos, 1880, p. 38.

§ Ibid. p. 1 6. ** Ibid. p. 27. jf Ibid.

CHILL OF THE DESERT NIGHTS. 75

handles split, and paper breaks when crushed up in the hand." *

On his return from the Nile sources Sir Samuel Baker
found the thermometer, at Suakin, marked 115° Fahr.

We might largely increase the number of instances
where these intense heats are recorded, by quotations
from the works of various authors, did not time and
space forbid. What we desire, however, more parti-
cularly to point out, is that where these great heats do
occur, they are certain — when they are not accompanied
by hot winds — to be compensated for by the occurrence
of cool nights: because the same cause which operates
to produce these extreme temperatures by day, namely,
the want of aqueous vapour in the atmosphere, is
sure to create an exceedingly rapid radiation of heat
the moment the shadow of the earth intervenes to
shield us from the fierce rays of the sun — and although
the ground may have been heated ever so much dur-
ing the day, the temperature falls so rapidly by night,
that towards morning the traveller is often glad of
all the extra coverings he can obtain.

The German traveller Dr. Barth, for instance, after
describing the great heat of the desert in Southern
Tripoli, mentions that the guide of the Arab caravan —
" begged me to beware of the cold during the night,
which he represented as very intense, " f and it is a
fact well known to all travellers that though the heat
in the Sahara is often very extreme by day, yet the
nights are uniformly cold, when the hot wind does not

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1887,
P. I?-

f Travels in Africa (1849 to 1855), by Dr. Barth, Vol. i, p. 185.
(Undertaken under the directions of H.B.M. Government, and published
1857-8).

76 PENETRATING POWERS OF DRY COLD.

blow, and though it may seem absurd to the ears of
the general reader, a good warm ulster is a very
necessary part of a traveller's outfit for nightwork in
these regions. In the Empire of Morocco the Bedouins
all have a sort of long, thick, brown-striped woollen
garment, made of native cloth and furnished with a
hood, called] a " haik," for this purpose, which can
with a little trouble be easily adapted for the use of
Europeans. Before the days of ulsters, the author
found this haik a good and efficient substitute for that
now almost indispensable garment, which has contri-
buted so largely to the comfort and health of modern
travellers.

Of course it goes without saying, that for a traveller
to be without ample protection against the sudden
falls of temperature at night, and especially against
the bitter chill of the small hours of the morning, is
one of the surest ways of laying the seeds of fever,
rheumatism, or some other serious ailment — a matter
which we shall have a good deal to say upon here-
after, in the proper place. But barring accidents
from this preventable cause, the beneficial effects of
these cool nights in bracing up the constitution against
the exhausting heat of the day, is very marked.

Hence it comes that these very high temperatures
are not found to produce the same evil effects as the
considerably lower ones met with in damp, steamy,
tropical climates. The dry zone of desert countries
which extends across the continents of Asia and Africa,
is therefore comparatively healthy — notwithstanding that
they comprise within their limits what are probably
the hottest countries in the world — that is to say,
those countries where the range of the thermometer

PEOPLE OF COLOUR. 77

is by far the greatest and the solar temperatures
highest.

It is a remarkable fact that almost the whole of this
immense region is co-terminous with the limits of the
strongholds of the Mahometan faith, showing that
even opinions, like plants and animals, have their
special climatic range. * Now, these people, mostly
of the Arabic race, as we know, comprise what are
physically speaking some of the finest and most war-
like races of mankind: showing that the fierce rays
of an incandescent sun have not impaired their native
vigour- and though it has, in various degrees, bronzed
their complexions, till sometimes — possibly by an ad-
mixture of Negro blood — they are as black as any
native of Africa : this has, however, not detracted from
their manly beauty, for nowhere are finely chiselled
classical faces more common.

This is a fact which has been noted in all ages,
notwithstanding the European prejudice against people
of colour. Thus, the picturesque Moorish prince, attired
in all the magnificence of oriental costume, while
apologizing for his sun-burnt face, in Shakespeare's
celebrated play, is supposed to address his English
sweetheart in the following strain:

"Mislike me not for my complexion
The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun
To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred." f

In like manner, so far back as the ancient scriptural
times, we find the dark-visaged oriental defending

* See some interesting observations, with maps, in illustration of this
point, pp. 43 — 4 in " Seas and Skies in Many Latitudes" by the
Hon. Ralph Abercromby, 1888.

j Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Sc. I.

78 THE DESERT NOMADS.

against the disparagement of the Jewish maidens, those
swarthy lineaments on which the sun had set its seal,
and exclaiming:

" I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as
the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not
upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked
upon me." *

In all ages the east has been the region of romance,
and to this day the figurative language of the Arabs
gives expression to their ideas in the exact style of
the Old Testament, f There can be no doubt that
both this oriental cast of thought, and the primitive
habits of these nomadic tribes are entirely due to the
peculiar climatic influences which we have been dis-
cussing ; for as Sir Samuel Baker has clearly pointed
out —

"The Arabs are creatures of necessity, their nomadic life
is compulsory, as the existence of their flocks and herds
depends upon the pasturage. Thus with the seasons they
must change their localities — precisely as the wild beasts of
the country are driven from place to place, either by the
arrival of the fly (the seroot), the lack of pasturage, or
by the want of water; even so must the flocks of the Arab
obey the law of necessity in a country where the burning
sun and total absence of rain, for nine months of the year,
convert the green pastures into a sandy desert. In the absence
of a fixed home, without even a village that is permanent,
there can be no change of custom. His wants must be few,
as the constant changes of encampment necessitate the trans-
port of all his household goods." §

It is in fact, as Lord Wolseley has expressed it, in

* The Song of Solomon, Ch. i. Verses 5 and 6.

f Sir Samuel Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, 1867, p. 129.

§ Ibid., pp. 128 — 9.

DRY GRASS BLOWN AWAY BY WIND. 79

a recent speech upon "The Study of War," made
before a military society lately established in Ireland —
"the physical features of the world that have most
influenced the history of man"* — and though this
axiom may be accepted as applicable to every part of
the earth's surface, of course it is peculiarly so in these
dry regions to which these observations refer — for
during the long rainless season the greater part of
this country becomes, in the strictest sense of the word,
an utterly barren desert, where neither man nor beast
can find subsistence, as the extreme heat of the sun,
the utter drought, and the scorching breath of the
simoon, causes all vegetation to shrivel up and appar-
ently entirely to perish; so that ultimately the dried
grass breaks in the wind, and is carried away in dust,
leaving the earth utterly naked and bare. The desert
is then the desert indeed : yet on the return of
the "kharif" or rainy season, as the same authority
observes — "the whole of this country is covered with
excellent pasturage, and far from resembling a desert
becomes a mass of bright green herbage." f

The most striking feature of these sun-stricken regions,
as we have already observed, is the refreshing coolness
and beauty of the nights; which have been made the
subject of remark by all travellers who have visited
these parts of the world. We cannot do better than
again refer to the pages of Sir Samuel Baker, in
illustration of it —

"I much prefer," he says, "the intense heat of summer to
the damp of the rainy season, which breeds all kinds of

* Speech of General (now Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief) Lord

Wolseley in Dublin, reported in Article of U.S. Magazine for March 1891.

j- Sir Samuel Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, 1867, p. 61.

8o CHARMS OF THE DESERT NIGHT.

vermin. During the hot season the nights are cool and de-
lightful . There is not one drop of dew, and we live entirely
in the open air, beneath the shade of a tree in the day, and
under a roof of glittering stars at night. The guns never
rust, though lying on the ground, and we are as independent
as the antelopes of the desert; any bush affording a home
within its limits of shelter" * —

and again, speaking of the night in the Soudan desert,
he states —

"There was an indescribable delight in the cool night,
when, in the perfect certainty of fine weather, we could rest
in the open air, with the clear bright starlit sky above us.
There were no mosquitoes; neither were there any of the
insect plagues of the tropics: the air was too dry for the
gnat tribe; and the moment of sunset was the signal for
perfect enjoyment."!

These paragraphs describe in the clearest manner
the peculiar charm of night in these hot dry countries,
which afford, as we have already pointed out, a period
of cool and refreshing rest to both mind and body,
exhausted by the overpowering heat of the day — and
we might amplify these facts, were that desirable, to
any extent, by quotations from the works of other
travellers. It is true that hot nights do sometimes occur,
but that is always, as we have explained, during the
prevalence of hot winds.

These remarks upon dry atmosphere would, however,
be incomplete without some observations respecting
its action at high altitudes.

In South America, and also in Thibet, table lands
of immense extent are met with, lying at elevations

* Sir Samuel Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, 1867, p. 185.
f Ibid., p. 36.

WINTER IN THE UPPER ENGADINE. 8 I

of 10,000 to 15,000 feet and upwards oversea-level.*
Here, all the peculiar effects of a dry atmosphere,
such as we have already described, are again exhibited,
but in an exaggerated degree. Those who have visited
these regions, have always been struck with the in-
tensity of the sun's power, so long as one remains
exposed to its rays ; but on the other hand, the pecu-
liarly searching nature of the cold the moment one
enters the shade, is no less remarkable — while at
night, as might be expected, its intensity is something
extraordinary. These phenomena may be witnessed to
a certain extent in Europe, by those who make a
winter visit to St. Moritz, and other places in the
Upper Engadine, which lie at an elevation of some
6100 feet above sea-level, f During the brilliant
sunshine of a cloudless day the heat on these occa-
sions is often so considerable that visitors skating on
the lakes are obliged to be dressed in the thinnest
summer clothing — but the moment the sun goes down,
or that night approaches, the cold is that of the arctic
regions. These variations of temperature in a dry
atmosphere, however, are not so objectionable as they
would otherwise be; for Dr. Tucker Wise, the English
physician at Maloja, states that—

" it is by no means rare for individuals to quit a room
and proceed out of doors, with a difference of 50° and
occasionally of 60° Fahr., without feeling any very pressing
need of gloves or extra clothing" — and provided there is
no wind — " on the bright days of mid-winter, surrounded by
ice and snow, the new visitor marvels that the low tempera-
ture is unperceived, and that the sun's rays carry with them
the heat of summer." — "Ordinary catarrh," he also tells us,

* Murray's Handbook for Switzerland, 1886. j Ibid.
VOL. I. 6

82 PHENOMENA OF DRY ATMOSPHERE.

" is at this season almost unknown, except in the badly
ventilated houses." *

On the great table lands of the Andes, in Peru and
Bolivia, beneath the rays of a tropical sun, these
extreme variations of temperature are, as might be
expected, even still more extraordinary.

" In May and June (their winter months) at midday in the
shade there is an average temperature of 55° Fahr., and dur-
ing the rest of the year of 64° Fahr., but in the sun of 110°
and upwards. This great disparity between the temperature
in the shade and in the sun, is everywhere met with on
elevated table lands, at a height of more than 10,000 feet :
and is explained by the rarefication and dryness of the at-
mosphere, which unlike damp air, is unable to retain and
diffuse solar heat, whether on its passage from the sun or
reflected from the ground." f

Speaking on this same subject, Dr. Tucker Wise
observes that —

" It is remarkable what misunderstanding prevails on
the subject of humidity in relation to equability of climate.
Books are written, extolling certain places as being ' dry and
equable.' It is not too much to say that there is no climate
on the face of the earth which is ' dry and equable.' Nearly
every climate which has a small range of temperature is
necessarily a moist one, for it is the alternate evaporation
and condensation of moisture which limits the range of the
thermometer." §

We must next consider the influence of the winds
as a factor in the determination of climate.

Some writers have even (and as we believe rightly)

*. Alpine Winter in Its Medical Aspects, by A. Tucker Wise, M.D.,
Third Edition; p. 98 (Pamphlet, no date).

•j" Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia
and South America, edited by H. W. Bates, 1878, p. 207.

§ Alpine Winter in Its Medical Aspects, p. 41.

INFLUENCE OF PREVAILING WINDS. 83

considered wind entitled to a leading place in this
respect, because rains and other changes of weather
are mostly brought about by variations of wind, pro-
ducing sudden alterations of temperature.

Thus rain, as we know, is caused by a warm current
of air, surcharged with watery vapour, meeting a cold
one, which condenses and precipitates its superabundant
moisture as rain.

In a changeable climate like England, therefore, the
influence of the winds is peculiarly marked, and those
who aspire to become weatherwise there will find
noting the variations of the wind, by means of a vane
placed in some commanding position, one of the best
aids in making forecasts as to w^eather. The cause of
our rainy climate, for instance, becomes apparent when
we observe that the prevailing wind is from the S.W.,
and that this wind comes to us across a vast expanse
of ocean, from warmer latitudes, and therefore sur-
charged with vapour, which is precipitated on meeting
with our variable and colder winds.

We have, however, placed heat (i.e. temperature) and
elevation, which, as we have explained, modifies tem-
perature in certain well-known mathematical ratios,
before wind, as the two leading factors of climate,
because it is now pretty well a matter of ascertained
fact that wind is simply a product of heat, and that
the sun — which is the ultimate source of every form of
life and movement, and in the widest and most literal
sense of the term, governs everything here on earth,
—among other things, creates the wind.

" From the heat of the sun," says Professor Tyndall,*

* Heat a Mode of Motion, by Professor John Tyndall, F.R.S., 1875,
p. 164.

84 THE TRADE WINDS.

"all our winds are derived." These matters are,,
however, very fully discussed in meteorological works,
and we shall therefore merely venture, in these pages,
to offer a few remarks upon some of the more specially
remarkable effects which the winds exercise upon
climate.

There can be little question that the " Trade Winds *
stand first in this respect ; and that these winds which,
from the parallels of about 30 or 35 north and south
of the equator, are unceasingly sweeping round the
equatorial regions at a speed of some 10 or 12 miles
an hour, exercise a most powerful influence upon
climate, everywhere throughout the world, as the chief
rain-producing winds. Observations show that from
the belt of calms, or light airs, which prevail in the
neighbourhood of the equator we have two zones
of originally dry hot, and therefore evaporating winds,
whose average temperature is from 78° to 80° Fahr.,
extending entirely round the earth — viz., the Zone of
the N.E. trade, to the northward of the equator;
and that of the S.E. trade, to the southward of it; —
and that,

"with slight interruptions these winds blow perpetually, and
are as steady, and as constant, as the currents of the Mis-
sissippi River; always moving in the same direction, except
where they are turned aside by a desert, or a rainy region,
here and there, to blow as monsoons, or as land and sea
breezes." *

Another fact worthy of note is that though those
winds are, as we have said, in all probability the chief

* The Physical Geography of the Sea, by Lieut. Maury, U.S.N.,
1877, I7th edit., p. 78.

RAINS AT ST. HELENA. 85

rain-producing factors of the world, yet, " in the region
of the trades the rainfall is everywhere small over the
open sea, " * i st, " because their course is directed into
regions that become constantly warmer " f — and 2ndly,
because their steady nature leaves few opportunities for
meeting with variable currents of colder air. Thus at
Ascension, in Latitude 8° 45' S., which is always within
the course of the S.E. trades, the mean rainfall for
1854 and '55 was only 8.85 inches, and at St. Helena,
also situated within the same, the observations of five
years give a rainfall of only 5.36 inches on the coast. §
But the moment the interior of that island is reached,
observations taken at an altitude of 1763 feet above
sea-level, according to the same authority, show -that
it has immediately increased to 23.98 inches, because
of the fall in the temperature produced by this increased
elevation. We have drawn particular attention to
these facts, as showing how completely rainfall is
governed by variations of temperature.

The influence of the trade winds upon navigation
has, Lieut. Maury tells us, been laboriously investi-
gated at the National Observatory at Washington, and
results show that the average speed of vessels sailing
through the south east trades of the Atlantic, which
are both stronger and steadier than the N.E., was 6.1
knots an hour between the parallels 5 and 10 degrees
South; and 5.7 knots between 25 and 30 degrees
South. **

Experience shows that sailing ships, after entering

* Encycl. Brit., gth edit. Vol. xvi, p. 150.

f Ibid., p. 150.

§ Ibid., p. 150.

** Lieut. Maury, U.S.N., "Sailing Directions," 8th Edit. Vol. ii, p. 857.

86 SAILING SHIPS IN THE TRADES.

the trades, can often stand on upon their course,
making from 5 to 6 knots an hour, under ordinary
circumstances, for many days together, without perhaps
once having to call upon the watch to trim a sail.
We have seen this done ourselves ; and for those who
can enjoy life at sea, this portion of the voyage is
generally most agreeable. As a rule, it is a region
of fine weather. The sun is, of course, very powerful
by day, rendering good awnings a necessity for comfort,
but the temperature of the nights, with their soft balmy
breezes, beneath the usually almost cloudless canopy
of a brilliantly starlit sky, is most delicious. And the
experienced traveller, about to proceed upon an ocean
voyage, will not forget when engaging his cabin, to
see that its port opens towards the eastward, so as
to obtain the full benefit of these refreshing breezes—
that is to say, when outward bound from England it
should be on the port side, and on the homeward
voyage on the starboard side. We call attention to
this, because the guide books for passengers proceed-
ing to India via the Suez Canal and Red Sea, give
opposite advice, because the winds are deflected
there from local causes; our remarks here therefore
are to be understood as applying to ocean voyages
only.

It is obvious that near the equator the trade winds
must meet. Here, therefore, we find a region of calms
and rains prevails, known among sailors as " The
Doldrums," which separate the two systems of trade
winds. It is calm, because these winds, as it were,
neutralize each other in meeting; it is a region of rains,
because in doing so an upcast current of heated and
moisture-laden atmosphere is created, whose aqueous

CROSSING THE DOLDRUMS. 87

vapour condenses on reaching the higher and cooler
regions of the great altitudes and so produces the equa-
torial rains. This belt of calms, however, like the trade
winds themselves, varies somewhat, both in extent and
position, according to the time of year — its most usual
position, according to Lieut. Maury, is, however, from
about Lat. 5° to 10° N., from whence it shifts at
times nearly down to the equator. *

If, as we have stated, a voyage in a sailing ship is
delightful while passing through the trade winds, it is
unfortunately very different on reaching " The Dol-
drums," for there vessels are often detained for two
or three weeks, idly rocking to and fro upon a sea
looking like a sheet of glass — in an atmosphere as
close as that of a stove house, with the thermometer
standing at 88° or 90° Fahr. between decks — and
in the days of the old sailing East Indiamen, when
passengers were cooped up for months together on
board troopships proceeding to the East via the Cape,
the women and children, and other delicate persons,
used to suffer severely. It was, as Lieut. Maury
expresses it, when alluding to the early Australian
emigrant ships, " a frightful graveyard on the way to
that golden land, " and probably nowhere is the enormous
advantage of steam over sails more apparent than in
crossing these calms on board a modern ocean steamer,
which now frequently makes runs of nearly 400 miles
in the 24 hours. The "Doldrums" seldom extend over
more than about 5 or 6 degrees of latitude, that is
some 300 or 360 nautical miles, a distance which is
easily run by a first-class ocean liner in about 24

* The Physical Geography of the Sea, by Lieut. Maury, U.S.N.,
i6th Edit., 1877, p. 77.

88 USES OF DESERTS.

hours — indeed, the whole period required for one of
these vesels to run through the tropics from Lat. 23°
30' N. to Lat. 23° 30' S., does not exceed eight days. *
These few facts probably place the revolution effected
by steam over sails in a clearer light than any more
detailed description could do.

Space, and the nature of our subject, will of course
preclude any attempt at a description of winds in
general; we therefore confine our remarks to the great
systems of the trade winds prevailing upon the
ocean, because of their extreme importance upon the
subject of climate, and because their action may be
witnessed at sea in a way which it cannot be on
land.

A variety of causes combine to modify the course
of the winds on land. Wherever the earth, for example,
becomes highly heated by the sun's rays, the atmo-
sphere near its surface becomes rarefied, and ascends,
thus creating an indraught to supply its place. The
question which often arises in enquiring minds — What
is the use of deserts? may here perhaps receive some
attempt at solution. Deserts have their uses in mo-
difying the action of the winds, and it may be are
created as one of Nature's great mediums of atmo-
spheric circulation. There can be no doubt that by
deserts, and other extensive dry plains, the natural
action of the trade winds is disturbed, and what
is known as a " Monsoon," or deflected trade wind,
takes their place. It is, however, on great continents
like Central Asia, Africa, and Australia, where these
phenomena are best witnessed.

* New Zealand Shipping Company's Handbook for Passengers,
1889, p. 13.

INDIAN FAMINES. 89

The importance of the monsoons in India is too
well known to need any detailed description. It is
to them that the ebb and flow of the rainy seasons
are due; and when these rains fail, droughts, with
consequences which are fearful to contemplate, ensue.
In fact it may be said that the history of the great
famines of the east, where millions of unhappy per-
sons have sometimes perished, is synonymous with
" Drought." "All the great Indian famines of which
we have record have been caused by drought repeated
over a series of years'' * — that of 1876 to 1878 being
probably the most serious of those that India has
suffered from during the period of British rule. It
began by the failure of the monsoon of 1875. Her
Majesty's Indian Government nobly exerted themselves
on this occasion to minimize the distress as far as
possible, and " the total expenditure of the government on
this occasion may be estimated at £> 8, 000,000 sterling,
not including the loss of revenue " f — it has, however,
" been estimated on substantial grounds that the mor-
tality in the provinces subject to British rule during
the famine and drought of 1877 and '78 amounted to
five and a half millions " in excess of the usual average
death rate, while the " number of births was lessened
by two millions. " — " The total reduction of the popu-
lation would thus amount to about seven millions." §
Coincident with this famine in India another fearful
famine desolated North China — it was very severe in
1877 and '78 when owing to the mismanagement and
apathy on the part of the Chinese government " nine

* Encycl. Brit, gth edit., Vol. xii, p. 766.

f Ibid., vol. xii, p. 767.

§ Report of the Indian Famine Commissioners.

QO CIRCULATION OF THE WINDS.

and a half millions of people are said to have perished. " *
We merely cite these facts as an illustration of the
enormous importance which the natural sequence of
rain-bearing winds in some cases assumes. The trade
winds, as we have stated, on the high authority of
the late Lieut. Maury, are the principal evaporat-
ing and rain-bearing mediums. We wish we could
find space for a more complete survey of this, one of
the most wonderful of all natural phenomena, but
we must content ourselves with offering but a single
quotation from Lieut. Maury's works, in support of
what we have already stated upon this subject.

"The S.E. trades enter the Northern hemisphere, and as
an upper current bear into it all their moisture." — "All the
air which comes loaded with moisture from the other he-
misphere, travels in the upper regions of the atmosphere,
until it reaches the calms of Cancer: here it becomes the
surface wind that prevails from southward and westward; as
it goes north it grows cooler and condensation commences.
We may liken it to the wet sponge, and the decrease of
temperature to the hand that squeezes the sponge. Finally,
reaching the cold latitudes, all the moisture that a dew point
of zero, or even far below, can extract, is wrung from it," f

— and subsequently, we may add, this air returns
towards the southward as dry atmosphere, and re-enters
the trade wind regions to recommence its round of
duty. Such, in brief, is the general outline of the
atmospheric circulation of our world — varied and modi-
fied, according to local causes, in a thousand ways,
we need hardly say — which it would be quite out of

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates — Article "Famines."
f The Physical Geography of the Sea, by Lieut. Maury, U.S.N.,
1877, pp. 118 and 119.

HOT WINDS IN AUSTRALIA. QI

the question to go into here, even had we the technical
data to enable us to do it.

We may, however, point out that substantially the
same phenomena are witnessed, where there is land,
in the southern hemisphere. We refer to the hot
winds which constitute a remarkable feature in the
meteorology of Australia, whose temperature on the
inland plains often for days together reaches from
1 10° to 1 1 6° Fahr. * — These great currents of heated air
"are evidently produced by the sinking down of the N.W. cur-
rent of heated air which is always passing overhead." — " That
there is a constant current overhead from N.W. to S.E., may
be traced day after day, and month after month, by the small
clouds which mark its lower limits passing in ceaseless streams
to the S.E. The great interior plains, which are almost treeless
and waterless, act in summer like a great oven ; and thus become
the chief motor force of Australian winds, by causing an
uprush, and consequent inrush on all sides, especially on the
N.W., where it has sufficient power to draw the S.E.
trade wind over the equator, and convert it into a N.W.
monsoon"— which "forms part of the great return current
from the equator towards the South Pole. " f

These remarks upon winds naturally lead us to the
consideration of rains, a product of wind, and as those
occurring at irregular intervals in the temperate zone
present no feature of very special importance, we shall
mainly confine our remarks to the far more remarkable
phenomena attending the bursting of the monsoons
and other periodical rains in countries which possess
regular hot and dry seasons.

We have already alluded to the disastrous effects

* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia,
edited by A. R. Wallace, 1883, p. 29.
f Ibid., p. 30.

92 THE SCRIPTURES ON A GREAT DROUGHT.

which droughts produce over immense areas of the
earth's surface ; it would be easy to multiply instances
of these calamities which have at times caused tremen-
dous losses to settlers in South Africa, Australia, South
America, and other places. The historical records of
the Old Testament, for instance, teem with accounts
of the sufferings inflicted upon the peoples of the East
by droughts and famines, many of which are full of
dramatic power and pathos. It would be difficult to
find a better example than is afforded to us by one
of these, where the bursting of the monsoonal rains,
after a long continued drought of three and a half
years, is graphically described in the sacred writings.

It was the occasion when the Prophet Elijah had
gone forth to meet Ahab, the King of Israel, about
the year 914 B.C. * At this time, as we are told,
"there was a sore famine in Samaria" — so much so
that Ahab had called Obadiah, the governor of his
house, into his councils and, commanded him to —

" go into the land, unto all the fountains of water, and unto
all brooks ; peradventure we may find grass to save the horses
and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. So they
divided the land between them, to pass throughout it. Ahab
went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way
by himself." f

Subsequently Elijah meets Ahab, and the scene is
changed to Mount Carmel, a high promontory over-
looking the Mediterranean, and rising to an elevation
of about 1500 feet, § where all Israel was gathered

* Chronological Table, Murray's Handbook for Syria and Palestine,

1855, p. 12.

f /. Kings, xviii, verses 5 and 6.

§ Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, 1 4th edit. 1861. Edited by the
late Chas. Taylor — article " Carmel."

THE COMING UP OF A SUB-TROPICAL RAIN-STORM. 93

together, at the King's command, to meet Elijah, and
witness the destruction of the Prophets of Baal. In
the closing verses of the same chapter the coming of
the rains is described as follows —

(41) "And Elijah said unto Ahab, get thee up: eat and
drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain. (42) So
Ahab went up to eat and to drink: And Elijah went up to
the top of Carmel, and cast himself down upon the Earth,
and put his face between his knees. (43) And said to his
servant, Go up now, look towards the sea. And he went
up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. — And he said.
Go again seven times. (44) And it came to pass at the
seventh time, that he said— Behold there ariseth a little
cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, Go
up, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down,
that the rain stop thee not. (45) And it came to pass in
the meanwhile, that the Heaven was black with clouds, and
wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and
went to Jezreel." *

The Scripture here presents us with a lifelike picture
of the sudden coming up of a sub-tropical rain-storm.
The rainy season generally commences in the land ot
Canaan early in October, and the winds usually blow
at that time off the Mediterranean from the west — but
when they fail the heat is excessive, f The King is
obliged, as we read, to hasten his departure homewards,
so that the torrential downpour, descending upon the
thirsty land, and rapidly converting dry ravines and
watercourses into raging torrents, may not stop him
on the way. It is a phenomena always most impressive
to a traveller when witnessed in its full intensity for
the first time.

* /. Kings, Ch. xviii, verses 41 to 45 inclusive.

j Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible — Article "Canaan."

94 A DESERT WIND STORM.

Further to the southward, in the Desert Zone, these
sudden storms frequently come up, accompanied by
threatening masses of clouds, sometimes of inky black-
ness, and wind squalls of excessive violence: but
nevertheless the rainfall itself fails ; or perhaps a few
heavy drops only are all that descend. These pheno-
mena are very common in Upper Egypt and Nubia,
and upon the Red Sea, during the winter season. —
The German traveller Dr. Klunzinger supplies us with
a good description of one of these storms, witnessed
by him at the desert port of Koseir (Lat. 26° 6X247/ N.)
on the eastern seaboard of Egypt.

" On such occasions (he tells us) it is by no means un-
common for the greater number of vessels in the harbour
to be wrecked. One can foretell the approach of such a wind
by the rise of a small white cloud, in the eastern horizon,
after a period of almost perfect calm : a slight breeze, gra-
dually increasing in strength, then rises; the suspicious little
cloud approaches with astonishing rapidity, and in a brief
space a raging, howling tempest prevails."*

The resemblance between the coming up of this
storm, and that described in the Book of Kings, in
every respect, except as regards the rain, will doubtless
strike the reader : but we must remember that the one
at Koseir occurred in what may be regarded as a
practically rainless region. In the equatorial zone, the
same phenomenon is constantly witnessed, accompanied
not only by torrential rains, but also generally by
heavy thunderstorms. The following is a description
of one witnessed at sea, in the " Doldrums " or belt
of equatorial calms —

* Upper Egypt, Its People and Its Products, by C. B. Klunzinger,
M.D., formerly Egyptian Sanitary Physician at Koseir, 1878, p. 289.

AN EQUATORIAL RAIN-STORM. 95

" As we were passing the equator, we suffered from a tre-
mendous thunderstorm. The heat was excessive, not a breath
of wind stirring the air. About twelve o'clock a little cloud,
about the size of a man's hand, rose in the horizon; gradu-
ally it spread, until it hung like a huge mass over the ship.
I stood and watched its increase, when suddenly a vivid
flash of lightning shot from the heavens and almost blinded
me; at the same moment a crash of thunder bellowed round
the ship, like the noise of a thousand cannons. The rain
now descended, not a sharp, thick shower, such as you may
witness in England, but, as it were, all in one mass, and soon
every trace of the storm had passed away; the sun burst
forth, and the ship and the sails were dried in the course
of a few moments." *

Rain, as we are accustomed to see it in the tem-
perate zones, gives us no conception of the violence of
these tropical downpours, when the water descends
not in drops, but in streams ; as if " all the fountains
of the great deep were broken up, and the windows
(or floodgates) of Heaven were opened. " f The ancient
Hebrews in fact imagined rain to be derived from
great reservoirs in the heavens which Moses refers to
as "the superior waters." §

These rains are often of such excessive violence as
to be in themselves one of the principal factors in the
creation of deserts, for wherever the ground is not
perfectly flat these torrents soon strip off all vegetable
soil, and thus in a few years destroy that which has
been the work of centuries. Nature, for this reason,
has very generally clothed these regions with forests,
which, however, man, in certain cases, has thought fit

* Popular Account of the Manners and Customs of India, by the
Rev. Charles Acland, 1847, p. 2 (description of the voyage out).
i Genesis vii, verse 2.
§ See Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, p. 856 — article "Tents."

Q6 PHENOMENAL RAINFALLS.

to destroy, with the above result. Irremediable harm
has been done to some countries in this way.

We shall endeavour to give some idea of the enorm-
ous quantity of water which sometimes falls in these
torrential rains, within a very brief space of time.

In Calcutta, for instance, on May loth 1835, 16
inches of rain fell in twelve hours * — and on the
authority of Mr. Yule, it is stated that on the Khasia
Hills, in the month of August 1841, 264 inches, or
twenty-two feet of rain fell, and that during five suc-
cessive days of that time 30 inches fell in every
twenty-four hours ;f in other words as much rain fell
on each of those days, as falls in most parts of great
Britain in a year.

Sir James Martin, writing on this subject, says that,
"It is in the Burmese territory that we find the
most surprising examples of great falls of rain — those
who served at Rangoon, and in Upper Ava, will
never forget the rainy season in those countries,"
and quoting from an article in the Calcutta Review,
describing the Khasia Hills, he cites the case of the
station of Chirrah-Poonjee, where according to Professor
Oldham the rainfall of 1851 amounted to 592 inches,
or within 8 inches of a depth of fifty feet of water. §
It would be easy to quote further examples of great
rainfalls, but these extracts from the standard work
of this well-known Indian medical authority are, wre
think, sufficient on this point.

But it is sometimes at great distances beyond the

* The Influence of Tropical Climates in Producing Disease, by Sir
James R. Martin, 2nd. edit., 1861, p. 32.
| Ibid., p. 32.
§ Ibid., p. 32.

SUDDEN. FLOODS. 97

locality where these rains themselves have fallen, that
their most extraordinary effects are to be witnessed.
Without a moment's warning sudden floods of the most
dangerous and appalling character are created, which,
as if by the bursting of the dam of some immense
reservoir, carry destruction and death in their course.
Disastrous floods, in fact, very constantly follow the
breaking up of long droughts. This was so after " the
first great Indian famine and drought of which we
have any record, which devastated the lower valley
of the Ganges in 1769 and '70, when one third of
the population are credibly reported to have perished. " *
In Australia also, and other places, alternately with
droughts there have been disastrous floods. The whole
.course of Nature in fact is a system of compensation
and adjustments — all her operations seem to be carried
on with a sort of rhythmical cadence, like the beat
of some gigantic pendulum: and if the pendulum
at any time is pushed too far in one direction,
almost certainly the return swing will go too far in
the other.

We shall now proceed to cite some instances of
these sudden floods. Generally they have been preceded
by drought; not a drop of rain has fallen, and perhaps
not a cloud has been visible in the sky; and yet,
without the slightest warning of any kind, floods have
suddenly swept down the watercourses, on account of
torrential rainfalls further up the country.

One of the most remarkable instances of the kind
is one related by Sir Samuel Baker, of the coming
down of the great River Atbara in the Soudan desert.
It occurred on the night of June 23rd, 1861. For months

* Encycl. Brit., 9th edit., Vol, xii, p. 767.
VOL. I. 7

98 COMING DOWN OF THE GREAT ATBARA.

previously, not a single drop of rain had fallen
and the drought was extreme. The heat of the previous
day had been intense: the fiery breath of the Simoon
being almost overpowering — while the sky as usual
was unflecked by a single cloud. The only water
in the river consisted of detached pools occurring here
and there in the midst of a bed of burning sand.

The following is the substance of Sir S. Baker's
narrative :

"The cool night arrived, and at about half-past eight I
was lying half asleep by the margin of the river, when I
fancied I heard a rumbling like distant thunder: a low un-
interrupted roll appeared to increase in volume. Hardly had
I raised my head to listen, when a confusion of voices arose
from the Arabs' camp, shouting in the darkness, ' El Bahr !
El Bahr!' The River! The River! (literally 'The Water'). We
were up in an instant, and my interpreter, in a state of intense
confusion, explained that the river was coming down, and that
the supposed thunder was the roar of approaching water. Many
of the people were asleep on the clean sand on the river's
bed — these were quickly awakened by the Arabs. Hardly
had they descended, when the sound of the river beneath
told us the water had arrived. All was darkness and con-
fusion. The great event had occurred, the river had arrived
' like a thief in the night ' — on the morning of the 24th
June I stood on the banks of the noble Atbara River, the
wonder of the desert! Yesterday there was a barren sheet
of glaring sand, with a fringe of withered bush and trees on
its borders, that cut the yellow expanse of the desert. For
days we had journeyed along the exhausted bed ; no bush
could boast a leaf; no tree could throw a shade — crisp gums
crackled upon the stems of the mimosas ; the sap dried upon
the burst bark, sprung with the withering heat of the Simoon.
In one night there was a mysterious change — there was no
drop of rain, — no thundercloud on the horizon to give

RIVER BEDS AS CAMPING GROUNDS. 99

hope, all had been dry and sultry; dust and desolation
yesterday — to-day, a magnificent stream some 500 yards in
width, and from fifteen to twenty feet deep, flowed through
the dreary desert. Bamboos and reeds, with trash of all
kinds, were hurried along the muddy waters. Where were
all the crowded inhabitants of the pools? The prison doors
were broken, the prisoners released, and rejoicing in the
mighty stream of the Atbara." *

The causes of this extraordinary flood are not diffi-
cult to determine. As Sir S. Baker explains — "This
sudden creation of a river was but the shadow of the
great cause — The rains were pouring* in Abyssinia!
These were the sources of the Nile." f

These strange and wonderful events are, however,
more common than people might be disposed to im-
agine, and in some countries it is a matter of serious
risk to encamp upon dry river beds. These situations
present considerable attractions to travellers, as a
place of encampment, on account of the general ab-
sence of insect pests and the clean expanse of dry
level sand that is often found in such places. We
cannot, however, too emphatically warn travellers to
beware how they indulge in this dangerous practice.
The German traveller Dr. Barth, who was for some
time in command of the British Government Exploring
Expedition, in North Africa, from 1849 to 1855, relates
the fact that their camp in the Sahara was on one of
these occasions nearly swept away by the occurrence
of one of these sudden floods, through camping in a
ravine during heavy rains, and though the valley was

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker,
1867, pp. 51 to 53.
j Ibid., p. 51.

1 00 WATERSPO UTS.

half a mile wide he informs us it was soon turned into
a rapid torrent. *

Almost all parts of the great prairies of North
America and the karroo regions of South Africa are
also liable to be visited by terrific rainstorms, which
give rise to floods of the most dangerous character,
which take place without the slightest warning of
any kind. These cloud-bursts occur suddenly, in the
midst of a spell of the finest weather, when perhaps
there has not been a drop of rain for weeks. Colonel
Dodge, U.S.A., gives us a graphic description of
some of these phenomena in his delightful and instruc-
tive work, " The Hunting Grounds of the Great West. "

" They are so severe," he tells us, " that they have the
general name of waterspouts. The quantity of water poured
from the clouds and the effects produced are so apparently
incredible that I would hesitate to describe them, but that
the facts are perfectly well known to every prairie man.
These storms generally occur in the afternoon of a sultry
day, and in gathering and coming up have all the appearance
of an ordinary thunderstorm. The rain, however, does not
fall in drops, but in streams. They present the appearance of
sheets, or waves, of water, and when the deluge of rain isr
as is often the case, accompanied by huge rounded lumps
of ice, they become really very serious. Men can generally
find means of protecting themselves — though I have seen
them pretty badly beaten — but animals are sometimes severely
injured, and always rendered frantic, by the pounding; —
If a storm overtakes a party on the march, the animals
should be unhitched at once, and taken to cover, if any
be near: or if there be none, most securely fastened to
the waggons. — If in camp every precaution should be taken,

* Travels in North Africa, by Dr. Earth, Vol. i, pp. 325 — 26
(published 1857, London).

SUDDEN RISE OF STREAMS. IOI

not only to secure, but to protect them. Every approaching
storm should be regarded as a possible waterspout, and full
preparation made to meet it. The effect of such a quantity
of water, poured out upon the high plains, and rushing into
the ravines, can more easily be imagined than described.—
Depressions in the surface, scarcely noticeable in dry weather,
become in a few minutes raging torrents; ravines ordinarily
dry, become impassable rivers; and valleys, even though one
or more miles in width, are flooded to the depth of many
feet. Fortunately these storms are restricted in area, but
unfortunately their disastrous floods are not confined to the
vicinity of the occurrence. The flood moves on, carrying
trouble, delay, suffering, and loss of life in its turgid waters,
until they are finally lost in some of the great rivers of the
plains. *

The most likely season for the occurrence of these
storms, Colonel Dodge says, is during the months
of June and July ; but they may occur at any time of
the year. People may, however, spend a long time
camping out upon the plains, upon the borders of
streams, and so forth, without any accident. This
tends, as he points out,

"to carelessness, and sooner or later meets its reward, if
not in actual loss, at least in a thorough drowning out " —
" but the most careful plainsman cannot always be prepared
for thunder from a clear sky, nor arrange for a flood when
not a cloud is to be seen."

These events become, however, still more serious,
if they take place in the night time, as they often do,
\vhen the wearied travellers are wrapt in slumber, and
have turned in, totally unsuspicious of evil. Colonel
Dodge thus describes one of these nocturnal floods
occurring to his military camp —

* The Hunting Grotmds of the Great West, by Col. Richard I.
Dodge, U.S.A., 1877, pp. 81—83.

102 A GREAT PRAIRIE FLOOD.

" My company was encamped on a bluff about 25 feet
high, at the foot of which was the dry sandy bed of a
stream — the bed averaged about 100 feet wide. The opposite
bank was low, and from it the ground extended away in a
broad bottom, to meet a line of hills. — About eleven o'clock
on a clear, bright, beautiful, starlit night, I was lying reading
in my tent, when I heard a distant roaring, rushing sound,
gradually swelling in power. Guessing at once the cause, I
rushed out, and placed myself on the edge of the bank, over-
looking the sand. — In a few moments a long creamy wave
crept swiftly, with a hissing sound, across the sand ; this ap-
peared to be only a few inches deep. Following it at a
distance of about 60 feet was a straight, unbroken mass of
water, at least four feet in height — a perfect wall of water.
From this the mass gradually rose to the rear, covered with
logs and debris of all kinds, rolling and plunging in the tre-
mendous current. In 10 minutes from the passage of the
advance wave, the water was at least 15 feet deep, and the
stream nearly half a mile wide. — It was three days before
this stream was fordable, and fully a month before it returned
to its normal condition." *

The wisdom of the old traveller's maxim, always if
possible, when upon the march, to cross a stream im-
mediately upon arriving- upon its banks, before en-
camping for the night, is made apparent by this
anecdote — because if a freshet should occur during
the night, its passage may be impracticable the next
day, and you may have to wait a considerable time
before its waters, on subsiding, render the ford possible.
The danger of passing fords when rivers are in flood,
has been proved only too often.

Another event of the same character is recorded, in
which the sufferers were the 3rd Regiment of Infantry,

* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, p. 83.

MILITARY CAMP DESTROYED BY A FLOOD. 103

U.S.A., who were encamped upon the river Salado,
near San Antonio, Texas, just after the close of the
Mexican war of 1849: —

" The stream was then a thread, over which it was easy
to step." — " In the small hours of the morning, when the camp
was buried in repose, a sentinel nearest the stream found his
coat covered with water. The night was perfectly clear,
though dark; and for a few moments he sought in vain for
the cause. Hearing a rushing sound towards the stream, he
noticed that its bed was bright with running water; and on
approaching, he found it already more than bank full, and
that he was walking in the water of an approaching freshet.
Discharging his musket, he alarmed the camp. Everybody
tumbled out of bed, and, to their astonishment, into the
water. All was alarm and commotion. The water rose
steadily, but with wonderful rapidity; and the men were di-
rected to make their way to the high land, as best they
could; horses were brought, and the ladies, laundresses, and
children carried on their bare backs, over nearly two miles
of water, often up to the horses' bellies, before arriving on
the safe high ground. Not a thing was saved : nearly all the
command were in their night clothes. Tents, provisions, arms,
everything, was carried down by the stream and totally lost.
The bottom was so wide that the water was nowhere deep,
and only one life was lost. The next morning the thread of
a stream of the night before, was a mighty river, twice as
wide as the Mississippi at Memphis." *

The moral of all this, of course, is, never to encamp
close to the banks of dry stream beds, but if possible
to chose a location well raised above the reach of the
water, in case of a possible flood. In all probability
it was only the wide, flat nature of the valley that in
this case, saved the lives of the whole command. That

* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, pp. 85, 86.

104 CAVALRY SWEPT AWAY.

this is not at all an exaggerated supposition, will be
apparent from the following still more serious and fatal
disaster, which overtook Company F. of the 3rd U.S.
Cavalry on the 3ist of May, 1873, in the valley of
Blackwood, in the State of Nebraska. It is an ab-
stract taken from the report of the Captain, which is
quoted at length in Colonel Dodge's work—

"About 9 p.m. a terrible freshet without any apparent
cause swept down the valley, carrying everything before it.
Men, horses, tents, army waggons, were swept along like
corks. For five days previous we had had no rain, and
where all this water came from so suddenly, I cannot yet
understand. The valley of Blackwood is about 45 miles
long, and about I to i-|- miles wide. This entire stretch of
country was one raging torrent, from six to seven feet deep,
and how any man or horse escaped, is marvellous. The
only thing that prevented total destruction, was the fact that
my camp was surrounded by timber, and as the men were
carried off, they were enabled to save themselves by catching
the limbs of trees. When day broke on the first of June, it
showed almost all the men of my company on the tops of
the trees, without any covering except the remnants of under-
clothing, and beneath them, the torrent still raging. After
the lapse of a few hours the water began to fall, and a few
men who could swim got to the hills. Afterwards the others,
and myself, were got off by various other means. Six men
were drowned, and twenty-six horses lost."

The commanding officer of the regiment, at Fort
McPherson, in his endorsement of this report, remarks,

" Nothing but the courage and coolness of Captain

and his non-commissioned officers, prevented the loss
of the entire command. " *

These extracts, collected from Colonel Dodge's book,

* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, pp. 87, 88.

CAUSES CREATING SUDDEN FLOODS. 105

are, we think, sufficient to show the sudden and
terrible nature of some of these floods, which, as we
have said, are more common in the interior of great
continents throughout the world, than people would
suppose. They are frequent in South Africa for instance.
The torrential rains of the inter-tropical zone being in
these cases carried far up the country — probably be-
cause of the quantities of heated air cast up from the
surface of these great plains ; all over which, the solar
rays are felt with great intensity of power.

And if in answer to the very natural questions:
From whence do these immense quantities of water
come ? and, Why do they fall so suddenly ? we might
venture to hazard an opinion upon matters so apparently
unaccountable, we should be inclined to reply, That
in the first place, what seems to be clearly taught us
by these occurrences is that the marvellous water-
bearing capacity of the winds is practically inexhaust-
ible, because of the diffusion of aqueous vapour through
space — and lastly, that the less obvious phenomenon
of its sudden condensation in these enormous quan-
tities is probably due to the great radiation of solar
heat, so often experienced in the plains country, which
causes the vapour-laden winds to flow onward without
depositing their due proportion of water, until, after
excessive accumulation, some sudden cyclonic eddy
of cold atmosphere occurs to precipitate it.

The area of these disturbances is sometimes restricted
to very small proportions, as is conclusively proved by
the following incident, which occurred at Paris, on the
afternoon of May 2ist, 1891, when —

" A waterspout formed near the centre of the Champs
Elysees, and gyrating in its descent over the Place de la

106 GREAT THUNDERSTORMS.

Concorde, burst in the Jardin des Tuileries, where it tore
up three of the largest chestnut trees in the grounds, and
did serious damage to many other trees. While the storm
was at its height, a thunderbolt fell upon the Esplanade des
Invalides, but nobody was injured."*

The prevalence of electrical phenomena, concurrently
with these waterspouts, deserves special notice ; though
we fear it would be rash to hazard an opinion as to
how far the atmospheric disturbances may be influenced
by them — but that they exercise material effect is a
fact that can hardly be doubtful.

In the British Islands we can form literally no idea
of the terrific nature of the thunderstorms which take
place in some parts of the world: although we occa-
sionally do have what in England we regard as severe
storms of this nature, during which accidents sometimes
happen both to man and beast — also to buildings, by
being struck by the electric fluid. Fortunately, how-
ever, these occurrences are comparatively rare. Both
in number and severity they are as nothing compared
with the frequent accidents of this kind which occur
abroad; where the electricity seems to run along
the ground and plays all sorts of curious pranks. We
have seen thunderstorms, for instance, where for some
hours the roll of thunder has been almost continuous,
and blinding flashes of lightning have followed each
other in rapid succession, almost the whole time. The
thunder on such occasions really resembles the discharge
of heavy artillery; and at the crisis of the storm,
when it is exactly overhead, the claps follow instan-
taneously upon the flash, with an explosion which

* Morning Post of May 23rd 1891, "From our own Correspondent,
Paris, May 22." (N.B. — Similar paragraphs appeared in all the London
papers).

ACCIDENTS FROM LIGHTNING. 107

exactly resembles the firing of a piece of ordnance,
followed by the peal of thunder which is broken in
upon by the succeeding crash before its reverberation
has ceased. We have sometimes seen such storms
work right round the compass, and return overhead
two or three times, before ceasing, as if moving in
a great circle.

The wonderful thing is not that so many accidents
occur, but that one escapes at all, on such occasions,
wThen the electricity seems to be all round one, and
the very heat of the flash sometimes seems to be quite
distinctly felt upon the face. Yet the danger is more
apparent than real, for as a rule, people in general
get off quite safe. Mr. Selous, however, mentions a
case, where two travellers were struck by lightning
whilst sitting in their waggon, on the plains of the
Transvaal — one recovered, but the other was killed
upon the spot. * On another occasion during a storm,
a number of cattle were instantaneously killed, by
the lightning striking a tree under which they were
taking shelter.

" Suddenly" (Mr. Selous says), " I saw splinters fly from a
tree about sixty yards off, whilst all the cattle standing be-
neath it, fell to the ground. On going up to see what had
happened, I found thirteen fine oxen lying killed. Most of
them must have had their heads down, feeding, and had
fallen so suddenly, that their heads were bent under their
bodies. I turned all the carcases over, but could find no
mark of any kind on them." f

We might proceed to multiply instances of disasters
which have occurred throughout the world, caused by

* Travels in S.E. Africa, by F. C. Selous, 1893, p. 448.
j Ibid., p. 447.

108 SHEET LIGHTNING IN SOUTH AFRICA.

thunderstorms ; but they would merely be a repetition
of similar scenes, recounted with fresh details. We
may, however, say that in South Africa, what are
called " dry storms, " that is to say thunderstorms
unaccompanied by rain, are generally considered more
dangerous, and are much more dreaded than the
common form with torrential rain. The whole of the
" karroo country " is subject during certain seasons to
the occurrence of tremendous thunderstorms, and in
some of the drier regions the greater part of the rain-
fall of the year occurs during the prevalence of the
summer thunderstorms. *

The exceedingly dry climate of South Africa seems
to be peculiarly favourable to the exhibition of electrical
phenomena, and during the summer heats nearly
every evening after sundown brilliant displays of sheet
lightning may be witnessed, which last well into the
night. The scenic effects are often splendid and some-
times resemble, in the constant play of fire, the appear-
ance of a city burning in the distance. The delicious
temperature of the nights is at this time most charm-
ing. The sheet lightning is not accompanied by rain :
there is no dew; and in these dry regions one can
sit out under the brilliantly starlit sky, without the
slightest risk from damp, to any hour that may be
desired, enjoying the most delightful repose.

According to the guide-books Natal seems to be
peculiarly subject to heavy and sudden thunderstorms
which sweep over the country during the hot months ;
we were not, however, ourselves long enough in that
colony to be able to express an opinion as to this;
but it is stated, that —

* Brown's South African Guide, 1893, p. 41.

CATTLE IN THUNDERSTORMS. 1 09

" the annual average of such storms is 97, of which the
great majority occur in summer, and the lightning is far more
brilliant and dangerous than in England; seared patches of
grass many yards across may frequently be observed where
the electric fluid has struck the ground, and several head of
cattle are occasionally killed by one flash." *

Our own experience with cattle and other domestic
animals, during" severe storms of this nature, is that
they cease feeding", and generally draw together in
groups for protection, where they stand with their
heads down, very often around the base of some
large tree, when there is one at hand; and thus
these accidents, when numbers are struck dead, as
related in the case mentioned by Mr. Selous, are com-
paratively common in many parts of the world.

The whole of the great prairie regions of America,
for instance, are subject to violent thunderstorms, and
one of the severest that we have ever witnessed
burst over a party under our command, while far out
in the great Indian country, beyond the frontier
settlements of the whites, shortly before the War of
Secession. In our East Indian Empire also, tremendous
thunderstorms are common; those which generally
accompany the bursting of the monsoons being some-
times of an appalling character. We think it quite worth
while to reproduce here the account of one of these events,
graphically described by the pen of Mr. Mountstewart
Elphinstone, at the beginning of this century. He says —

"The most remarkable rainy season is the S.W. monsoon.
In the south of India, this commences about the beginning
of June, but it gets later as we advance to the north. Its
approach is announced by vast masses of clouds that rise

* Brown's South African Guide, 1893, p. 47.

110 BURSTING OF THE INDIAN MONSOON.

from the Indian Ocean, and advance towards the N.E.,
gathering and thickening as they approach the land. After
some threatening days, the monsoon generally sets in during
the night. It is attended by such a tremendous storm, as
can scarcely be imagined by those who have only seen that
phenomenon in a temperate climate. It generally begins
with violent blasts of wind, which are succeeded by floods
of rain. For some hours lightning is seen almost without
intermission, in vivid and successive flashes which exhibit
objects in all the brightness of day. During all this time
the distant thunder never ceases to roll, and is only silenced
by some nearer peal, which bursts on the ear with a sudden
and tremendous crash, as can scarcely fail to strike the most
insensible heart with awe. To persons who have long resided
in India these storms lose much of their grandeur, yet they
sometimes rise to such a pitch as to make an impression on
those most habituated to them. I have been told by a
gentleman who had been some time in Malabar, the province
most distinguished for the violence of the monsoon, that he
heard a clap of thunder which produced a silence of a minute
in a large party of officers, and made part of the company
turn pale. At length the thunder ceases, and nothing is
heard but the continuous pouring of the rains, and the rush-
ing of the rising streams. This lasts for some days, after
which the sky clears, and discovers the face of Nature
changed, as if by enchantment. The earth is covered by a
sudden, but luxuriant verdure ; the air is pure and delicious ;
and the sky varied with clouds. From this time the rain
falls at intervals, for about a month ; when it comes on again
with great violence ; and in July the rains are at their height.
During the third month they rather diminish, but are still
heavy, and in September they gradually abate, and are often
suspended till near the end of the month, when they depart
amidst thunders and tempests, as they came." *

* Accotint of the Kingdom of Cabul, etc., by the Hon. Mountstewart
Elphinstone, 2nd edit. 1819, Vol. i, pp. 203 to 206.

ANCIENT IDEAS ABOUT RAIN. 1 1 I

This account of Mr. Elphinstone gives a capital
general idea of the phenomena which attend the burst-
ing of the Indian monsoon, and the onset of the rainy
season, in tropical climates: an event which almost
always leaves a vivid recollection upon the mind of
the thoughtful traveller, though long years may have
elapsed since he witnessed it: the feelings of awe,
which the grandeur of the spectacle produces, being
mixed with those of wonder as to where all these
enormous stores of water can come from.

Some curious details respecting the causes of these
torrential rains, have been handed down to us from
the dawn of history.

At a remote period of antiquity, according to
Augustine Calmet— a learned Benedictine of the Col-
lege of St. Vannes — (among other authorities) the
ancient Hebrews appear to have entertained the belief
that rain was derived from certain great reservoirs
" above the heavens" ; to which Moses is supposed to
make reference, in the Sacred Writings, as " the
Upper," or "Superior Waters," which were supposed
to exist above the firmament; in contradistinction to
the lower, or inferior waters, of the terrestrial sea. *

The "firmament " in those early days was supposed
to resemble an immense and solid arch, as indeed
the word itself implies, f

This formed the vault of heaven, and served as a
barrier between the upper and lower waters, and in

* Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, translated from the French, I4th
edition, 1861. Edited by the late Chas. Taylor. P. 856, article "Rains."
(The first edition published in Paris, 2 Vols fol. 1722 — see Bibliotheca
Britannica, by Robert Watts, vol. i).

f "Firmamentum," a support, prop, or stay; see Dr. Smith's Latin
Dictionary.

I I 2 THE GREAT CELESTIAL RESEPvVOIRS.

it, the stars were fixed like so many precious stones
set in gold or silver. *

Let us endeavour to point out how far these crude
theories are modified, or explained, by the light of
modern science.

That reservoirs do exist, containing supplies incon-
ceivably vast, constantly stored up above us, is indis-
putable; and those who may have honoured us by an
attentive perusal of the remarkable instances of heavy rain
storms — related in the preceding pages, from the works
of writers whose bona fides and accuracy are beyond
question — will doubtless have been struck by the extra-
ordinary amount of water which can, under certain
conditions, be precipitated from above in a wonderfully
brief space of time.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that however
much these very exceptional rainfalls may excite
astonishment, they proceed only from an infinitesimally
small portion of the whole atmosphere, which as one
of its normal conditions forms the conduit pipe, if we
may so express it, which conveys every drop of water
that fills the fountains, lakes, streams and great rivers
of the world. Looked at in this light, we may perhaps
partly realize the stupendous magnitude of the volume
of water constantly floating above, and around us, in
the form of vapour.

These therefore are "the superior waters" — their
reservoirs are the winds of Heaven. But modern
meteorological science teaches us that they exist not
in the form of water, but as invisible and impalpable
aqueous vapour — and that the same power which acts

* See Cruden's Concordance, article " Firmament " ; also same art. in.
Dr. W. Smith's Diet, of the Bible, 1863, vol. I, p. 621.

WATERY VAPOUR IN THE HEAVENLY BLUE. 113

as its absorbing medium acts also as an elastic cushion,
which is able to carry it along, notwithstanding its
enormous bulk and weight — (of which no words of ours
could convey an adequate idea) — as though it were no
heavier than a film of spider's web. The winds there-
fore supply the place which the " firmament " was
supposed to represent in the minds of the ancients.

The intelligent traveller, when he goes forth from
our cloud-laden atmosphere to bask in the glorious
sunshine and balmy breezes of a southern climate, may
therefore constantly bear this in mind, that though
the sky may appear spotless in its exceeding trans-
parence and serenity, and is unflecked, it may be, by
a single cloud, vast accumulations of water, such as
we have here striven, in a very humble way, to give
some idea of, are nevertheless perpetually floating
overhead, throughout the whole expanse of the heavenly
blue: unheard, unseen, unfelt, and even unsuspected,
by the dwellers upon the earth beneath. Indeed, it
seems probable that the azure blue of the sky itself
is simply the effect of the solar rays transmitted to
us through these immense masses of aqueous vapour.
Water itself, even in its most crystal purity, being o
a blue colour (ultra-marine) — but this colouring only
becoming apparent, when viewed through the medium
of masses of considerable volume.

Now, these enormous volumes of water are being
at all times gradually exhaled from the terrestrial
surface of the land, as well as from the entire liquid
expanse of the ocean, as vapour, so subtle in its
nature that in general it passes away in totally in-
visible form, so that it is only on rare occasions that
the action of this mighty process is revealed to our eyes.

VOL. I. 8

I 1 4 VISIBLE EVAPORATION.

Nevertheless there are times when evaporation
assumes palpable shape. Upon a winter's day in our
own country, for instance, when a bright sun streams
out after a night of severe frost, people walking in
their gardens, or near soil that has been recently
turned, may often see steam, rising in smoke-like
wreaths fr*om the surface of the ground. Occasionally
to such an extent does this become visible, that it
looks as if it was actually on fire. Go over, and put
your hand into the steam, and the humid warmth,
given off by the earth, can frequently be clearly felt!

Now, what is this but evaporation in visible form?
such as is at all times going on around us, though
we cannot see it. So again, when crossing the equa-
torial calms, in a ship at sea, when a shower of cold
rain has recently fallen, the surface of the ocean may
be seen to smoke, in an exactly similar way. We
have seen this phenomenon very beautifully exhibited
off the African coast, in the gulf of Guinea, during
the great heats which prevail there.

The cause of this remarkable spectacle, in both the
cases we have cited, is identical ; namely, the invisible
vapour, at the moment that it is given off and first
mixes with the atmosphere, becomes partially condensed
by cold, and so at once assumes a visible form: — in the
first case, through contact with the frosty air, the
immediate surface of the soil having been warmed by
the bright sunshine ; and in the second, by the chilling
effect of the cold rain falling upon the heated surface
of the glassy sea.

Such in brief is an outline of Nature's great design
of the water-bearing winds and the uplifting of aqueous
vapour to create the rains; grand and majestic, both

GREAT ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. 115

in its simplicity and magnitude. We hope also still
further to follow up and explain in our survey of the
climatic zones the wondrous phenomena which are
there produced in the vegetable kingdom, by the
united effects of heat and moisture.

Thus far, however, we have regarded Nature mainly
in her calmer aspects; but this section would be in-
complete without some notice of those great atmo-
spherical disturbances, such as hurricanes and blizzards,
or storms attended by the sudden onset of intense
cold. Nature, our beneficent mother, ordinarily so soft
and gentle in her operations, then becomes terrible in
her destructive power — and yet this violence is not,
as poets have sometimes described it, an access of
unreasoning fury; for the ultimate action of all storms
may be held to be restorative and beneficial, and may
be regarded as the convulsive efforts of Nature to
redress still greater evils, and to bring back into its
normal condition those disturbances of the atmosphere
brought about, occasionally, by a combination of un-
toward circumstances.

When the storm fiend, therefore, is unloosed, and
the mighty winds have gone forth to threaten and
destroy, we must be content to view it in this light.
In the economy of Nature, severe storms may in fact
be regarded as a paroxysm of disease, such as that
which attacks our corporeal frames — acute disease,
as we know, being by no means an unmixed evil to
the suffering mortal; but rather a supreme effort of
Nature to cast off from us those morbid conditions
which menace our safety and existence. Very terrible
and very destructive, however, these paroxysms of
Nature sometimes become; and very fortunate we may

Il6 THE TRACK OF A HURRICANE.

esteem ourselves, that in these sea-girt islands of
Britain we are rarely or never visited by these great
storms in their most dangerous form.

The tracks of hurricanes more generally seem to
follow the area of extreme temperatures by sea, and
the interior of great continents by land. There may
be exceptions, and there can be no doubt that every
part of the world may be visited by them, but we
speak merely of the usual course of events in these
cases. As a general rule the scenes of the most
destructive hurricanes are almost always to be found
in tropical regions, wherever in fact, as we have said,
extreme temperatures prevail; but these disturbances,
are sometimes carried up for long distances into the
temperate zones, wherever they traverse a wide extent
of dry flat country.

The experience of cyclonic storms throughout the
interior of the United States, for instance, seems
strongly to point in this direction, because, as we
know, the seaboard of that great country, in the tem-
perate zone, is generally exempt from those visitations,
which occur there in a severe form only upon rare
occasions.

Some of the great cyclones which originate in the
West Indies have been known, for instance, to travel
as far north as the coasts of Newfoundland; thus the
daily progress of one of the hurricanes of 1830 was.
traced —

" from near the Caribbee Islands, to the coasts of Florida
and the Carolinas, and thence to the banks of Newfoundland,
a distance of more than 3000 miles, which was passed over
by this storm in about six days: the duration of the most
violent portion at the different points over which it passed

REVOLVING STORMS. 117

being about 12 hours, but its entire duration was in many
places more than twice that period." *

The literature bearing upon storms and hurricanes
is most voluminous, and a catalogue of upwards of a
thousand works, reports, and other papers devoted to
this subject was published by Mr. A. Poey of Havana
in 1865,1 some of them dating back as far as the
beginning of the sixteenth century, and many hundreds
have since then been added to this long list.

But though the laws which govern these phenomena
have been the subject of debate, in this way, for
centuries, there still remain many points upon which
the opinion of authorities is undecided.

It is, however, a well-ascertained fact that hurricanes
have two distinct motions — the principal of which is
of a revolving or gyrating character; and the other
an onward and progressive movement; of this rota-
tory storm a miniature representation may frequently
be seen in gusts or eddies of wind, carrying round
with them bits of straw and dust, on any stormy
day.

It is this whirling motion which is so terribly de-
structive, and which seems to act with continually
increasing violence from its exterior margin inwards
towards its centre, or vortex ; at which point the
terrible " lull of the storm " occurs, and a complete
calm generally exists, with the sun perhaps still
shining brightly by day, or the stars by night —
whilst all around this central calm, is the dark bank
of cloud where the hurricane is still raging in its
greatest intensity. §

* The Law of Storms Considered Practically, by W. H. Rosser, 1876,
p. 10. j Ibid. p. 2. § Ibid. p. I, opening paragraph.

Il8 IN A CYCLONE AT SEA.

It would be foreign to the province of this work
to do more than sketch a brief outline of this subject.
It has, however, been " generally remarked, that the
most active and violent storms are usually the most
regular and uniform in the development of these
characteristic movements, already described."*

And fortunate it is that this is so, because it
has enabled a set of rules to be drawn up, showing
how officers encountering one of these hurricanes
at sea, can tell with comparative certainty where-
abouts the vortex of the storm is passing, and then
by following the instructions given, they can
generally manage, even in a sailing ship, to run away
from the approaching storm, so as to escape at all
events from its most dangerous phases; for a vessel
getting into the vortex of a hurricane of the worst
description, we need hardly say, runs a very good
chance of never being heard of again. The rules
for ascertaining the probable position and course of
hurricanes are given in extenso in various works on
navigation ; but a clear, short, and valuable account of
these matters will be found, condensed into a few
pages, in a naval pamphlet recently published at
Portsmouth by Captain Jackson, R.N.,f to which those
who are curious about such things will do well
to refer. And in the "Compendium of Geography
and Travel for Central and South America " the
leading fact is set forth in a single sentence as
follows —

* The Law of Storms, etc., by W. H. Rosser, 1876, p. 13.

\ The Principal Winds and Currents of the Globe, also Rainy
Seasons, Ice Limits, Fogs, Rollers, and Revolving Storms, by Captain
Robert Jackson, R.N., 1890, published by H. Lewis, Portsmouth.

THE POWER OF WIND. IIQ

" When we turn our back to the wind, the Vortex will be
on our left in the Northern, and on our right in the Southern
Hemisphere." *

The force of the wind is generally expressed by
measuring its velocity per hour in miles; though to
the ordinary mind this would give but a very indefinite
idea of what it was intended to convey; and a true
test will probably be found by reducing it to the
pressure of the gale upon a given surface, such as a
square inch, or square foot. All such comparisons,
however, give merely an approximate idea of the
enormous force which wind is capable of exerting on
such occasions. In the West Indies, for instance, we
have heard it asserted, on what seemed to be good
and credible authority, that during the fiercest phase
of a violent hurricane the wind has actually been
known to blow men away, like bits of stick or
branches of trees; and to dash them against rocks, f
or whatever happened to stand in the way, killing
them instantaneously; houses also of solid con-
struction are frequently overturned, and wrecked as
completely as if they had been bombarded by heavy
artillery.

The area of rotation of some of the greatest of these
storms has been estimated as an elliptical figure some
500 or 600, or even 1000 miles across, § and the
velocity of the whirlwind as great as 140 or even
150 miles an hour. ** This speed, however, we are

* See the Compendium of Geography and Travel for Central and
South America, by H. W. Bates, 1878, pp. 144 — 46.

f A case of this kind came under our notice in Ireland, during the
great cyclonic storm of January 1884 — a man named Gavin being
killed in this way at Carn Hill, in the County of Monaghan.

§ The Law of Storms, by W. H. Rosser, 1876.

** Ibid.

120 FORWARD MARCH OF CYCLONES.

inclined to think is overstated. But its progressive
march is very much less than its rotatory violence,
and it seems probable that these hurricanes do not
travel forward at a greater speed than about 18 to
20 miles an hour — or say from about 430 to 480 miles
a day; * and as the most violent hurricanes appear to
shift their position more slowly than those of lesser
intensity, it is therefore quite easy to see that it is
possible for a powerfully engined ocean steamer to
run right away from an approaching storm, provided
its advance is foreseen in due time, and its true position
is correctly estimated; and also provided, of course, she
has sea room to run in the required direction. Thus the
loss of the P. & O. SS. Bokhara, with nearly all hands,
in the China seas on October 10, 1892, arose from her
being caught in a narrow channel where there was
no sea room, and so she was driven ashore. We our-
selves knew the unfortunate ship and her officers well,
as we have sailed in her.

The approach of a hurricane, we need hardly say,
is always indicated by a rapid fall in the barometer,
which shows only too clearly the serious nature of the
atmospheric disturbance; and by the depth of the de-
pression then passing in the zenith — so that there is
now no excuse, in these enlightened days, for the
storm breaking upon a ship unawares. Nevertheless,
an unfortunate combination of circumstances may some-
times occur, which may put it out of the power of an
officer to avoid the gale, in which case he must try
and weather it as best he can. And we shall now

* This low speed of the forward advance of such storms is quite
distinct from their rotatory velocity, which may be five or six times
as great.

LOSS OF A BRITISH FLEET. 121

proceed to try and give a picture, so far as we can
do, in mere words, of one of these terrible scenes.

One of the most terrific and destructive hurricanes
upon record in the West Indies, is probably that which
occurred in October 1780: the British Navy seems
upon that occasion to have suffered more severely at
the hands of the Storm King than ever she did from
the united efforts of the fleets of France and Spain,
and the rebellious colonists in America, with all of whom
she was at that time at war; for on the day in question
a splendid fleet \vas sent to the bottom, and 15 ships,
mounting 482 guns, were lost to the Navy of England.
It comprised the following vessels: Thunderer, 74 guns-
Stirling Castle 64 — Defiance 64 — Phoenix 44 — La
Blanche 32 — Laurel 28 — Shark 28 — Andromeda 28—
Deal Castle 24 — Penelope 24 — Scarborough 20 — Bar-
badoes 14— Chameleon 14 — Endeavour 14 — and Victor
10 guns.*

It is probable that this is the greatest naval disaster
ever recorded as due to storm, except that of the
Spanish Armada, in August and September 1588,
whose loss was computed at about 35 ships and 13,000
men.f A medal was afterwards struck by order of
Queen Elizabeth, commemorative of this event, which
bore this significant motto— "AFFLAVIT DEUS ET DIS-
SIPANTUR " § — and the same words may with equal
justice be applied to the catastrophe which over-
took our own fleet two centuries afterwards. When
these mighty winds go forth upon their destructive

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information — Article
"Wrecks."

f Ibid.— Article "Armada."

§ Collection of Medals in the British Museum. [N.B. "The Opposition
motto" of Spain was — " Exsurge Deus, et Vindica Causam Tuam"~\

122 "THE GREAT STORM" OF 1703.

course, both by land and sea, the puny efforts of man
are but as a thing of naught. The history of the
world is replete with instances of this. Fortunately
for us, as we have already remarked, the British
Islands are wonderfully exempt from these visitations;
nevertheless they sometimes occur, as for instance in
the case of what is known as " THE GREAT STORM,"
one of the most terrible that ever visited England, on
the 26th and 2yth of November, 1703; which there
can be no doubt was one of these cyclonic tempests,
similar to those which occur in tropical regions. On
this occasion the devastation was terrific all over the
country; the loss sustained in London alone being
estimated at two million pounds sterling: and when
we bear in mind the enormously greater value of the
pound sterling in 1703, to what it now represents, this
loss was simply enormous. This hurricane, as is almost
always the case, wras accompanied by torrential rains,
and the loss of life by drowning, through the over-
flowing of the Thames, the Severn, and other rivers,
was very great. Multitudes of cattle were also lost;
in one district alone 15,000 being drowned. The loss
of life in ships blown from their anchorages and never
heard of afterwards, is thought to have been 8000;—
twelve men-of-war, with more than 1800 men on board,
were lost within sight of their owTn shore — and it is
estimated that 17,000 trees were torn up by the roots
in the county of Kent alone ; the Eddystone lighthouse
was destroyed, and in it, its architect, Winstanley,
and those who were with him, all perished.* Such
was the upshot of a twenty-four hours' gale in England.

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information. —
Article "Storms."

GREAT CYCLONIC WAVE IN INDIA. 123

Then, coming down to our own time, we have the
great cyclone of 1876 in India, when one of the most
frightful catastrophes ever recorded in any country
took place on the night of October 31, 1876, in the
estuary of the Brahmaputra:—

" At midnight a furious wind drove the sea water into the
estuary, thus banking up the river for many miles. The
wind then circling round, after the manner of cyclones,
brought its force to bear on the accumulated mass of river
water, driving it seawards. Thus there was a tremendous
refluence of the flood, placing hundreds of populous villages
under many feet of water, and more than 100,000 persons
were drowned in the darkness of that night." *

When the morning broke the retiring waters dis-
closed a scene of death, ruin, and desolation; a good
many persons saved themselves by climbing into
trees, but all the rest of the population, cattle, and live
stock of all kinds, lay dead, throughout the entire
area of the submerged district.

Still more recent is the terrible hurricane at the
Mauritius, which occurred on the 2Qth of April, 1892,
and' was one of the most destructive wind storms ever
known.

" iioo people were killed by it, and 2000 wounded. One-
third of the capital (Port St. Louis) was levelled to the
ground, and 30 out of 50 churches were demolished. Whole
villages were swept away, and some 50,000 people left
homeless." t

In this case it is stated that the result of observa-
tions shows

* India in 1880, by Sir R. Temple, 1881, p. 380.

f The Cyclone of April 29 in the Mauritius, by Robert E. H.
Jermingham, C.M.G., Lieut.-Orovernor of Mauritius; in Blackwood's
Magazine for September 1892, pp. 342 — 347.

124 HURRICANE AT THE MAURITIUS.

"that the velocity of the wind was 121 miles an hour, at
its maximum, which corresponds with a pressure of 67 Ibs.
to the square foot." :

So far as we can ascertain, this appears to be the
highest velocity ever recorded, from actual observation,
and the enormous force it represents was clearly
sufficient to actually blow men away like chaff; and
it was therefore not surprising to learn that in fact,
it did "carry all before it." — "In Port St. Louis whole
streets were literally swept away, about 3000 houses
being destroyed."!

So extensive and severe was the distress occasioned,
that upon the intelligence reaching England, public
subscriptions were at once raised for the relief of the
sufferers; a special fund being collected by the Lord
Mayor of London, at the Mansion House, for that pur-
pose, upon receipt of dispatches from Lord Knutsford,
Secretary to the Colonies, in which he says that
the disaster was " if anything, greater than the first
news led me to believe, and demands all the help the
friends of the colony are able to afford it in this
calamity. "§

In Blackwood's Magazine for September 1892, a
graphic description of the terrible scene is given by
the Lieut.-Governor of the Mauritius, well worth
perusal.

"The wind (he says) blew N.E. by E., at 22 miles an
hour, at 6 a.m. At noon its direction was N.E. -| E., and

* The Cyclone of April 29 in the Mauritius, by Robert E. H.
Jermingham, C.M.G., Lieut.-Governor of Mauritius ; in Blackwood's
Magazine for September 1892, pp. 342 — 347.

•j- Times report in paper of June 3, 1892.

§ Extract Letter of the Secretary to the Colonies to the Lord Mayor
of London, in Times of June 3, 1892.

THE LULL OF THE STORM. 125

its velocity 68 miles an hour; while at i p.m. its velocity
had reached 96 miles, indicating hurricane fury — but at 2 p.m.
(the Barometer still falling) it lulled to 56 miles, at the ob-
servatory, where the centre of the storm did not pass, and
to two miles in the centre (that is almost a dead calm)."

The lull of the storm is thus described:

" Between the gusts had always been those silent moments,
more terrible than the gusts themselves, which characterize
a cyclonic storm, as if the wind gathered its strength to strike
each blow more deadly than the last." *

The awful calm of the vortex seems to have passed
about 2.30 p.m. —

"Suddenly (we are told) the roar ceased, the hissing sank
to a whisper, a calm succeeded the storm, and a haze like
a November fog filled the air. Cautiously a door was opened,
and we stepped out and looked round — and one exclaimed
—'This is the centre' — and another 'Mind what follows '.
At 4 p.m. a boom like that of a hundred-ton gun, resounded,
and the battle raged anew, though the centre had passed." t

It was at this moment that the velocity of 1 2 1 miles
an hour was registered, and from thenceforward, as
the cyclone moved onwards, the storm abated, until
8 or 9 p.m. when it was at an end. " Never (we are
assured) did a more glorious day shine, than on the
morrow of the 29th of April." §

The storm fiend had passed by; and the work of
collecting the dead and wounded remained to be
taken in hand, exactly as upon the field of action,
after a great battle ; and before the close of that day —

* The Cyclone of Mauritius, in Blackwood's Magazine of September
1892.
t Ibid.
§ Ibid.

126 BLIZZARDS.

"the cathedrals, town hall, barracks, etc., had all been
turned into hospitals. " * The loss of life in this storm,
for instance, was actually more than t\vice as great
as that of the allied British and French armies at
the battle of Inkerman, and the number of wounded
was also considerably greater, though this was one
of the fiercest battles fought during the present
century, f

The "Blizzard," or gale attended with intense cold,
is another description of storm which deserves at least
a passing notice before we close this branch of our
subject. These storms are very common throughout
the plains regions, in the interior of North America
and other great continents, during the winter season ;
and frequently come on quite suddenly, during a spell of
otherwise fine and mild weather ; and although the wind
does not blow with the extreme violence which charac-
terizes the cyclonic disturbances of tropical climates
in summer and autumn, they often occasion intense
suffering and much loss of life, both amongst men
and animals. At the first indication of the coming of
one of these storms in wild regions, the plains animals
and birds fly before the icy blast and seek refuge in
the ravines and coverts — whilst man himself, and the
domestic animals, caught out upon the open plain
away from the neighbourhood of shelter, in a really
bad storm of this kind, are very apt to be frozen to
death — or at least to sustain severe mutilations, such
as loss of hands or feet, by frostbite. The losses of

* Times of June 3, 1892.

f Haydn's Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information states
that "The loss of the allies was 462 killed, 1952 wounded, and 191
missing " (see Article " Inkerman ").

MEN FROZEN TO DEATH. 127

stock sustained by farmers and others on these
occasions, are often exceedingly severe, horses and
cattle being" frequently frozen to death in large numbers.
Even so far to the southwards as Texas these storms
occur at intervals with great intensity, and are some-
times very destructive. In consequence of the wind
being generally from the northward they are there
known as " Northers " and are much dreaded by
residents upon the plains, no part of which seems to
be exempt from their visitations. Throughout the whole
extent of the western prairies blizzards, attended by
disastrous consequences, occur during almost every
winter and — "in the worst storms it is almost im-
possible for any man to be out." They are pretty
nearly always accompanied by heavy snow, whereby
landmarks are quickly obliterated, so that a man un-
fortunate enough to be overtaken by a bad blizzard,
upon the high plains, without a compass, is very apt
to lose his way and wander about in the blinding
snow drift, until overcome by cold and exhaustion.
A strange fact connected with these cases being
" that men found dead had evidently gone mad before
dying, and stripped themselves of their clothes ;
about half the bodies being found nearly naked." *
It seems hard at first sight to account for this re-
markable circumstance, but cold affects people in a
variety of different ways, and one of the effects of
great cold, as we know, is to produce an overpower-
ing tendency to sleep. The brain feels as if frozen:
the mind and memory quickly become affected; the
person reels about as if intoxicated; and violent deli-

* Ranch Life, by Theodore Roosevelt, 1889.

128 PHENOMENA OF DEATH BY COLD.

rium sets in. * And it may be that these unfortunates
removed their clothing under the influence of delirium,
which created the impression that they were going* to
bed. Before sensation becomes destroyed by cold,
also, severe burning pains are often felt in the limbs,
it is therefore possible that in some cases the clothes
are cast off in an effort to obtain relief from those
pains ; the individual thus himself completing the work
which the icy gale has begun, and so quickly falling
a victim to his own disordered fancies.f However this
may be, there can be no doubt as to the fact that
persons frozen to death do frequently strip themselves
in this way, the circumstance being well known
throughout the north western plains region of Ame-
rica, where we ourselves have frequently heard plains-
men relate instances of it, which had come under their
own observation. In other cases the position of the
bodies showed that death had come during sleep: in
the passes of the Andes, for instance, where loss of
life from cold is of frequent occurrence. According to
Lieutenant Brand, " many persons are found dead in
the snow with their heads reclining on their arm, just
as they had died, so easily does the King of Terrors
come over them." §

In these instances it is evident that the tendency
to sleep had become irresistible, and that settling them-
selves to rest, as if about to take their natural repose,
they had passed from the sleep of time into that which
knows no wakening.

* See Quat'n's Medical Dictionary, 1883. Vol. i, p. 271.

7 See Seas and Skies in many Latitudes, by the Hon. Ralph
Abercromby, F.R.M.S., 1888, p. 7.

§ Voyage to Peru and Journey across the Andes, in 1827, by-
Lieutenant Charles Brand, R.N.

A MULE TRAIN IN A BLIZZARD. 129

Very great losses, as we have said, are frequently
caused by these terrific gales, which are known as
" blizzards * in the United States. Captain Marcy, U.S.A.,
in his " Prairie Traveller " for instance states that, " while
passing near the head waters of the Colorado in
October 1849, he was overtaken by one of these storms.
He tells us that he left the camp

"at an early hour in the morning, under a mild and soft
atmosphere, with a gentle breeze from the South, and had
marched only a short distance when the wind suddenly
whipped round to the North, bringing with it a furious
chilling rain, and in a short time the road became so soft
and heavy as to make drawing the waggons very exhausting
for the mules, and they came into camp in a profuse sweat.
They were turned out of harness into the most sheltered
place that could be found ; but instead of eating, as was their
custom, they turned their heads from the wind and remained
in that position, chilled and trembling, without making the
least effort to move. The rain continued with unabated fury
during the entire day and night, and on the following morn-
ing 35 out °f ll° mules had perished, while those remaining
could hardly be said to have a spark of vitality remaining,
and could with difficulty walk."*

In this instance it will be observed, that the storm
was accompanied by rains, instead of, as is more com-
monly the case, by snows; it is therefore clear that
it was not a blizzard of the most severe kind or one
accompanied by a very high degree of intense cold — and
yet the loss, in a single night, amounted to about
one third of the animals drawing their waggons — a
ruinous loss to a military transport train. Exposure

* The Prairie Traveller, a handbook for Overland Expeditions, by
R.M. Marcy, Captain U.S.A., p. 57, Section on "Storms." (Published
New York, 1859).

VOL. I. 0

130 BUFFALO HUNTERS FROZEN TO DEATH.

upon the open prairie, to the full force and fury of
a violent plains Norther, Colonel Dodge tells us, after
30 years experience of life upon the plains, would in
his opinion—

" be certain death to any indigenous animal. Buffalo and
antelope fly before it, and seek protection in the deepest
and most wooded canons. Near Julesberg I once saw
the snow dotted with the bodies of a great number of
snow birds frozen to death in a storm a few days before.
Men suffer more than other animals." — "The icy wind cuts
like a knife, no clothing seems to keep it from the person,
and penetrating to every part, it drags out every particle of
vital heat, leaving but a stiffened corpse of him who is so
unfortunate as to be exposed to it." *

Thus in the winter of 1865 and '66, Colonel Dodge
informs us, a considerable command of U.S.A. troops was
caught on the Cimarron River in one of these storms,
" and barely escaped total destruction. An officer who
was with it described their sufferings as most fearful. Many
men were more or less frosted, and about 600 animals
frozen or starved to death" f— "still more recently at least
100 buffalo hunters perished from cold within 100 miles of the
Arkansas River in two years" — "and during the winter of
1872 — 3 over 200 men lost hands or feet or parts of them"
and " at least 70 capital amputations were performed by the
post surgeon at Port Dodge " on persons who had limbs
frozen, "whilst a much greater number were sent East for
treatment." §

It is, however, fortunate for the habitability of these
plains, that storms of such excessive severity are
comparatively rare, and when they do occur, are seldom
of long duration; and of course with the advance of

* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, by Col. Rich. I. Dodge,
U.S.A., 1877, p. 39. f Ibid. p. 41. § Ibid. p. 39.

CAUSES OF BLIZZARDS. 131

the settlements into the wilderness, it is more easy
to run to shelter than formerly, when there were
thousands of square miles without a house or even a
bush of any kind, to be seen upon them.

Now, as regards the cause of blizzards, it seems
hard to come to any other conclusion than that the
sudden onset of the intense cold, which characterizes
these terrible visitations, is due to atmospheric disturb-
ances taking place in the great celestial alti-
tudes, far beyond the reach of human observation:
which cause a strata of icy wind, there prevailing,
to descend upon the earth. This seems to afford the
only reasonable way of accounting for their sudden
occurrence perhaps during the course of a mild day,
after a spell of fine and apparently settled weather.

That currents of air blowing in different directions
at the same time do exist, we can often see for our-
selves, by observing the movements of the clouds,
which may be seen passing in different directions,
at different altitudes, thereby placing this fact beyond
a doubt. Also, the approach of a storm is often
indicated by the clouds flying rapidly overhead,
while a calm still prevails at the earth's surface: thus
proving that a gale, as yet unfelt on earth, is blow-
ing in the regions of space above. Then, we know
that as we ascend to great elevations we always
encounter progressively increasing cold, as we mount
up. This is a fact so well established, that it is merely
necessary to point it out — the occurrence of snow-
capped mountain peaks under the rays of a tropical
sun, however, affords conclusive proof of it; and
observations show that at an altitude of about 16,000

132 SNOW IN BLIZZARDS.

feet above the level of the sea, we reach the limits
of a region where eternal snow perpetually exists, in
the hottest parts of the world.

It is therefore evident that if a strata of wind is
suddenly displaced by some disturbing cause, and
made to descend from some great altitude upon the
earth's terrestial surface, it is certain to reach us in
an intensely cold condition ; and in its transit it will be
sure to precipitate the aqueous vapour of the lower
currents of air, either in the form of a very cold rain
or more probably as snow — and this is exactly what
occurs, the sudden drop in the temperature being
generally immediately followed by blinding showers
of drifting snow.

As we have already remarked, American meteoro-
logical observations show that the true blizzard
rarely visits the Atlantic seaboard in its severest
forms ; nevertheless, as we shall proceed to show, these
visitations occasionally occur, and we shall close this
branch of our subject by a short description of one of
the most terrible of these storms that has ever been
recorded, which burst upon New York, and other
eastern seaports, in the spring of 1888. The previous
winter had been a stormy one, and the north western
states had been visited by a blizzard of unusual intensity
during the month of January, concerning which we
are told — "appalling accounts of suffering and loss of
life, consequent upon the recent blizzard, continue to
come in."* — "The total number of victims is now ex-
pected to reach 200 — and in addition to those frozen
to death, large numbers had limbs badly frozen, while

* Times of January 18, 1888.

THE GREAT BLIZZARD AT NEW YORK. 133

many lost their way and perished, only a short distance
from places of refuge."*

The following March witnessed the advent of the
greatest blizzard that had ever visited the eastern
states within the memory of man. The Times of
March 17 says —

"For the first time in the present generation a north
western blizzard has attacked the Atlantic Coast of the
United States, and has been raging for the past three days.
Friday and Saturday (March 9 and 10) the sky was clear
and the air balmy, and Sunday came with a S.W. wind and
a warm rain, and the thermometer at 60°. During Sunday
night the scene underwent a change, as remarkable as un-
expected: the wind changing to the N.W. After midnight
the cold grew intense and by morning was accompanied by
a blizzard against which nothing could make head. All tele-
graph wires broken down, rendered isolation perfect, from
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington; each
city being as much cut off from communication with the
world as if it had been in the centre of the ocean. Enorm-
ous snow drifts filled up railway cuttings; scores of trains,
bearing thousands of passengers, were blockaded in snow drifts,
sometimes 20 feet deep. — On Monday, the I2th, the weather
moderated, but at nightfall came another piercing N.W. wind,
freezing everything fast, and holding the snow drifts with an
icy hand, that nothing could unloose.— Tuesday, the I3th,
dawned with almost all movement paralyzed, worse than
before. The wind howled, and the snow drifted throughout
Tuesday until night, during which the storm blew itself
out." f

Such is a brief outline of this terrible tempest, and
for many days the papers were literally filled with

* Times of January 19, 1888.
f Times of March 17, 1888.

134 GREAT SNOW DRIFTS IN BROADWAY.

details of death, destruction, and ruin, that had been
wrought by the deadly cold of this pitiless gale. Its
fiercest efforts were in and around New York, where
the Times states that over 200 persons perished. The
letter of this paper's Philadelphia correspondent re-
counts many additional particulars, and mentions among
others things that

" as the workmen dig out snow pits, corpses are found of
persons frozen to death— standing in the streets, where the
snow overcame them. 5000 men and 1000 horses and carts
have worked throughout the entire night, clearing a passage
through Broadway, where snow lay 6 to 10 feet deep. Among
the troubles of New York is the inability to reach the ceme-
teries for funerals; and 500 corpses have accumulated un-
buried throughout the city. Nearly 200 shipwrecks are
already reported." *

So remarkable and extensive was the destruction
wrought by this great storm, that the newspapers
almost without exception devoted leading articles to
the event, which is fortunately almost without a parallel
in the history of modern times— and the Times com-
menting upon it says in a leading article that,

" The blizzard which sweeps the North Westerly plains
of North America, has during the memory of the present
generation, been a respecter of boundaries, but on the night
of March nth the wild west flung itself for two days upon
the eastern seaboard of the United States. The extent of
the disaster is little realized in Europe. There is an in-
definite, and still expanding total of deaths by freezing, ship-
wreck, and railway accident. One estimate places the
(monetary) losses at £4,000,000, of which nearly £1,500,000
are assigned to New York. In its very streets, a few yards

* Times of March 18, 1888— Extract Letter of Philadelphia Cor-
respondent.

THE BLIZZARD AS A DESTROYER. 135

from warmth and comfort, pedestrians were overwhelmed by
the blinding storm, and their frozen bodies, still in a stand-
ing position, have hardly yet ceased to be dug out from the
closely packed snowdrifts." — "The great blizzard has had
its lessons. If we regard man as claiming supremacy over
the forces of Nature, such a storm teaches us how far man
is from subjecting the tempest, or even predicting its onset;
and how the mighty organism which he has pieced together,
can be paralyzed in a few hours, and left dependent for life
upon the forbearance of the conqueror. — The storm that has
visited New York is the worst which has visited it within
human memory ; yet in a fortnight the great blizzard will be
forgotten, and man will be absorbed, as blindly as ever, in
the struggle for riches or subsistence." *

Yes! in the fierce race for wealth, and amid the
continual whirl and turmoil of life in a great city,
these things are soon suffered to pass out of mind.
The dead, are buried, and their memory perishes; the
lesson which the great event has taught is as completely
forgotten as were the plagues of Egypt in days of
old the moment they ceased to trouble — and yet had
the icy gale continued but a little longer, it is not
too much to say that none of the plagues of Egypt
could have borne comparison with the blizzard in its
disastrous consequences. For as the same article which
we have quoted from above, points out: —

" Stop the circulation in a human body, and life is snuffed
out at once; but the circulatory system of a city admits of
a longer pause; but it is only a question of days; and if a
second storm had supervened upon the first, the pulse of
some huge community might have ceased to beat for ever." f

* Extracts Times, Leading Article, in paper of March 19, 1888.
f Ibid.

136 POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF A PROLONGED BLIZZARD.

There can be no doubt of it! Some of the drifts
were described by eye-witnesses as mounting up, at
certain points, as high as the first floor windows of
the houses, and New York had already begun to
suffer from partial famine. * * People were unable to
get down town, or in from the suburbs." — "Many
banks were unable to open their safes, because the
officers could not get to the banking houses." — And,
" the Stock Exchange finding business impracticable,
adjourned."! The dead lay unburied, and the living
were unable to go out to the shops to buy food — a
little more and the words of the Times might have
been verified, and the pulse of the great city might
have been stilled for ever. " The blizzard has made
good its claim, with fire, famine and earthquake: as one of
the great visitations to which societies of men are liable, "§
and the sensational novelist could find endless mate-
rial in its tracks for the exercise of his most exuberant
fancy. Happy are we in Britain, that for so far no
such storm has been recorded. There can be no doubt
that the ocean exercises a powerful influence in such
matters — yet at times our storms are bad enough.
An English blizzard of minor force did, however, occur
on the night of Sunday, December 25, 1886, by which
a large portion of the English telegraph system was
destroyed. With many parts of England communica-
tion was entirely suspended.

" The combination of so heavy a fall of snow with so
powerful a gale" (says the Times) "was almost without pre-
cedent Few winters pass without some weak point being

* Times of March 17, 1888.
t Times of March 16, 1888.
§ Extract Times, Leading Article, in Paper of March 19, 1888.

AN ENGLISH BLIZZARD. 137

displayed, but nothing like the destruction of the night of
Sunday, 25 December, has within any recent period been
witnessed in England. On that night many London streets
were rendered impassable by the wrecked wire, etc."*

The most violent class of cyclones — which are so
common in America, and destroy whole towns and
villages, levelling the houses, etc., as if the place had
sustained a bombardment from heavy artillery — do not,
however, very fortunately for us, visit England; it is
hard to say what damage and loss of life might ensue,
if the track of one of these hurricanes, of the severest
type, swept across the city of London — such, for
example, as that which on March 27, 1890, passed
up the Ohio valley, moved through Kansas, Missouri,
Illinois, and Indiana, and attacked the town of Louis-
ville, Kentucky. The destruction of the places along
the track of the storm was complete, for at Louisville

"in an instant great stone warehouses, places of amuse-
ment, railway stations, private dwellings, were levelled with
the ground — and on an area of about half a square mile
nothing was left but a mass of debris."— "The tornado passed
diagonally through the city from S.W. to N.E. Its path was
two miles long and 500 yards wide."f

Several hundreds of people were killed or injured
by the falling houses, etc. The hurricane, however,
quickly passed over, the clouds dispersed and the
moon shone out brightly over a scene which the Times
states "beggars description."

Another very curious phenomenon, consisting of an
atmospheric disturbance of a different kind, is a " dust

* Extract Times , Leading Article, in Paper of January 6, 1887.
j Extracts from " Latest Intelligence " column of London Times of
March 29, 1890.

138 DUST STORMS.

storm." They are very common in all dry countries,
and consist of a minor kind of tornado, unaccom-
panied by rain, which sweeps before it tremendous
clouds of dust and sand; in the most violent of these
storms the dust cloud becomes mixed with gravel,
which beats against the face, almost like a charge of
small shot. Such storms sometimes come up so sud-
denly, and with such extreme violence, that it is diffi-
cult to face the driving clouds of sand, etc. We were
once caught in a tremendous whirlwind of sand and
dust of this kind, on the road near Damascus, in Syria.
The horses were obliged to be frequently halted, and
turned with their backs to the wind, and it was only
during the lulls in the storm that travelling became
possible. South Africa is notorious for this sort of
storms, and in our chapter on the Desert Zone we
shall relate some curious facts concerning them.

The wraltzing columns of sand, which are so fre-
quently seen in the Nubian and other deserts, caused
by whirlwinds, or eddies of heated air, are among
the most curious of these phenomena, and may fre-
quently be seen from the decks of Nile boats proceed-
ing up the river, beyond the first cataract, and
occasionally they sweep across the river itself, and so
obstruct the view that steering becomes difficult, or
even impossible. These dust columns, though perhaps
they may not attain the same magnitude in Lo\ver
Egypt as they do in the Nubian desert (where the
late Sir Samuel Baker has estimated some that he
saw between Korosko and Abu Hammed, as from
1000 to 1500 feet in height), are still frequently seen
there rising to a great altitude. On the Karroos in
South Africa, we have also been assured by

SAND WHIRLWINDS. 139

residents that they often see them quite 1000 feet
high. On the Indian plains, and in Australia
also, large examples may; often be seen; so that this
phenomenon is by no means peculiar to the sandy
desert.

It is not easy to determine the exact cause of their
formation. The traveller may himself be standing
at a spot where the sultry air is unruffled by a breeze ;
and yet he may behold several of these travelling
pillars of sand, moving slowly across the plain around
him; but if we might venture to hazard an opinion,
we should say that they are caused by ascending
columns of heated air, which gradually suck in ground
currents of the surrounding air to fill the vacuum created
there; as this movement progresses its action will tend
to increase in intensity until the inrush becomes ex-
ceedingly powerful. The gyrating movement, we
should judge, would then result from its meeting
opposing currents of air which would thus create an
eddy, exactly as a sharp curve, or other obstruction,
in a rapidly flowing river, will produce a backwater with
a species of miniature whirlpool. After a certain
time, when the forces which created these dust pillars
have spent their strength, their action becomes ex-
hausted, and the column of sand or dust collapses,
and falls in heavy showers to the ground. This, in
fact, is exactly what may be seen to occur, for the
collapse of these dust columns often takes place quite
suddenly, and without any apparent cause.

The fall of the sand from these whirlwinds in former
days was much dreaded by travellers who encountered
them in the great deserts, where they occur in their
most serious form, for they were under the impression

140 LOSS OF THE ARMY OF CAMBYSES.

that anyone underneath them would certainly be
buried alive. The exaggerated tales respecting such
things circulated by the Arabs, even to the present
day, sound not a little alarming; and there is the
well-known instance mentioned by Herodotus, * when
the army of the Persian monarch Cambyses, consisting
of 50,000 men, was, in the sixth century before Christ,
buried in the drifting sands during its march across
the Libyan Desert, f But we shall refer to this event
more particularly in our next chapter.

For ourselves, however, we are inclined to disbelieve
altogether the story of their destruction by being
buried in sand, as we think it much more probable
that an army of this size perished through losing their
way, either through the want of proper guides or the
treachery of those employed, which would of course
entail the loss of the whole force, by thirst ; the bodies
of the dead would most probably then be gradually
covered by the drifting sands, which would give them
the appearance of having perished by being thus buried,
during life, in a sandstorm. Our experience of desert
marches teaches us that any little obstacle whatsoever
will collect the sand drift, which will form a dune
around it until the whole is completely hidden from
view. The buried tombs and temples of ancient Egypt
are good examples of this, and the curious reader will
find many other details relative to such matters, which
we trust may prove both interesting and instructive,
in our section on "The Desert Zone."

* History by Herodotus, Thalia, Book iii, Caput. 26 — Translated by
Henry Gary, M.A., 1891, p. 152.

f The data of this catastrophe is generally set down as occurring in
the year 524 B.C.

DUST AT JOHANNESBERG. 141

While we see grave reason to doubt that a force
of living men could ever be actually overwhelmed and
buried alive by a sandstorm (seeing that they can
shift their position as the sand collects, and so can
thus always prevent the unpleasant alternative of
allowing it to smother them), — we do not desire in the
slightest degree to minimize the exceedingly unpleasant
and even serious consequences, which a great dust
storm may entail. Such a storm may occur on any dry
plain, — for instance at Johannesberg, the great gold-
mining city in the Transvaal, where dust storms are very
common, the dust was always so great that we felt
inclined to name the town " The City of Dust"-
residents have informed us that they have often known
(in the earlier days of the city, when the streets were
worse than they are now) immense Cape waggons
drawn by 18 oxen, to be entirely hidden by dust from
the view of persons standing on the sidewalk, while
passing along the middle of the street.

This we can quite believe, for during one dust storm
which occurred while we were there, everything was
hidden from sight at a very short distance, and the
dust clouds entirely filled the streets, up to and above
the roofs of the houses. The thing lasted only two or
three hours, however, and was a nuisance rather than
a danger.

But sometimes matters prove more serious, especially
when the storm lasts for a considerable period. A
party, for instance, crossing the Colorado Desert in
America, thus relate their experiences: —

" We were overtaken by one of those dreadful sand storms,
which prevail in this desert. The day was intensely hot,
and the most oppressive silence reigned around. Suddenly

142 A FRENCH COLUMN IN A DUST STORM.

a dark, dense cloud arose in the West, and moved towards
us with incredible rapidity. Great masses of heavy sand
were lifted like so many feathers, and the plains formerly
occupied by large hillocks, containing thousand of tons of
sand, were swept even as if by magic. None of us could
stand against the force and weight of the storm." *

Even assuming that the quantity of sand thus removed
is overestimated, this shows with what fierceness these
storms rage when a really bad one occurs. Another
instance we may quote is the case of a French column
in Algeria, commanded by the Dukes DAumale and
Montpensier, which on the -jih of March, 1844, was
overtaken in the Algerine Sahara, by the Simoom; in
this case the storm " prolonged its furious assaults
during 14 hours." Yet on the following day Monsieur
Fournel, a mining engineer, who accompanied the force,
found that the storm had merely affected a narrow
zone parallel to the Aures range, and that at the
mountain base the tranquillity of the atmosphere had
been undisturbed.!

This shows how partial such tornadoes often are in
their area. At times they assume the ascending form,
which we have described as creating vast pillars of
eddying sand, or dust, in the desert, which often
mount up to an enormous height; thus showing that
the direction of the propelling force is upwards; and
in their ascending rush through surrounding strata of
still air they assume a gyrating motion, exactly as
the water in a large bath, let off by withdrawing
the plug, forms a vortex. In this case, as we know,

* Life among the Apaches, by John C. Cremony (Interpreter to the
U.S. Boundary Commission), 1868, pp. 125 — 6.

j The Desert World, by Arthur Mangin, translated from the French,
1869, p. 138.

CAUSES OF SAND PILLARS. 143

the rapidity of the whirl, and the strength of the
downward rush, produce a loud sucking noise, caused
by the air forcing its way down, through the middle
of the \vater, which then forms, as we can easily see,
a species of hollow cylinder of fluid.

We should therefore be inclined to hold, that in all
probability these moving and gyrating columns of dust
are, in the same way, not hollow, but motionless, and
perhaps also free from dust, at their centres; while
the dust particles revolve with enormous velocity
around this still centre. We have no actual proof at
hand to show that this is so, but such is our personal
belief — because, in the case of rotatory cyclones affect-
ing a large area, this still portion is almost invariably
present at their centres, and may have a diameter of
several miles.

Then, as to the next, or horizontal form of these
air-jets, those are merely another modification of the
above phenomenon; only the axis of the propelling
force is approximately parallel to the terrestrial surface ;
but in this case, as we believe, the whirl is to a
great extent neutralized by the attraction and obstruc-
tion of the immovable surface of the solid earth.
Nevertheless, that it exists in a modified form is
clear from the violent way in which masses of sand,
etc., are scooped up and whirled aloft. We remember
on one occasion witnessing a storm of this kind from
the deck of a vessel in the Red Sea, near its north
western end. An enormous cloud appeared sweeping
along the coast in a southerly direction, evidently
consisting of dust and sand, for the sky was at the
time elsewhere cloudless, and the atmosphere at sea
a steady pleasant breeze; whereas this dust storm

144 AN AMERICAN FOREST BLOWN DOWN.

moved with great velocity along the desert. The
dust clouds in spots rose to a great altitude, and as they
progressed occasional blasts of wind shot out laterally
across the water, showing how fiercely the storm was then
blowing on shore. This lasted perhaps an hour, and
then all was again still ; the ruddy coloured chain of
desert hills once more stood out in all their barren
desolation; their outlines in the now pellucid atmo-
sphere showing as clearly as if they were modelled in
adamant, so that their minutest details were dis-
cernible.

In the same way in the wooded tracts of forest,
found near the courses of rivers in the great plains
region of America, the track of some of these rushes
of air may be traced, where they have passed through
the wood, like the blast from the mouth of a cannon.
In their course (which may vary from 100, to per-
haps 500 or more yards in width), the whole forest
is levelled to the ground; not one tree, in many cases,
having been left standing where the vortex of the
storm has passed. The narrow front along which
such hurricanes frequently move, is thus seen in
the clearest way; and the traveller through these
wild regions (as they were when we visited them)
had frequent and ample opportunity of noting their
exact effects. At other times circling eddies of wind
will scoop a space, right out of the heart of a wood,
destroying everything within its vortex, but leaving
the trees all round it untouched; it is therefore clear
that the whirlwind has been of the ascending form :
and so everything outside of its rotatory whirl escapes.
The influence of the eddy in fact probably extends
only a very short way beyond its edge. We do not

A WHIRLWIND IN ENGLAND. 145

often have such things in England; nevertheless, the
following is an instance of a minor whirlwind which
did occur there. It took place on the banks of the
Thames, opposite Taplow Court, Maidenhead, on July
4, 1890, when "a whirlwind suddenly carried several
cocks of hay from a field, to a great height. Some
of the hay was carried across the river, and dropped
at a considerable distance on the further bank. A
large quantity of water was also lifted from the Thames,
to a height of over 12 feet." *

These phenomena therefore, though perhaps more
common in the Desert Zone than elsewhere, may, it
is clear, occur almost anywhere, and at any moment,
provided the condition of the atmosphere is in that
peculiar state of disturbance which produces them.

We must close this section with a short review of
the general conditions which the terrestrial atmosphere
bears towards the earth; and as it seems to us we
must regard the latter almost as a fish floating in the
centre of an aerial ocean, which envelops it with a
gaseous fluid, much as the waters of the sea enclose
a fish ; while we, the dwellers upon earth, are constantly
living (as do animalculse upon the bed of the ter-
restrial sea) at the bottom of a vast atmospheric ocean
of enormous depth : how deep it is not known, but the
most generally accepted opinion, at present, is that
its depth is at least 120 miles — and the probabilities
are that it is a great deal more; it is suggested that,
"in an extremely attenuated form, it may even reach
200 miles; "f future investigations, we are inclined to

* Morning Post of Saturday July 5, 1890.
f Encyclop. Brit., gth edit., Vol. iii, p. 35.

VOL. i. 10

146 THE GREAT ATMOSPHERIC OCEAN.

think, will, however, increase this estimate: it is not
easy to place a limit to the possible tenuity of an
elastic gas.

Be that as it may, however, this atmospheric ocean
has its tides, its currents, and its circulation, exactly
as has its terrestrial counterpart ; and though of course
the specific gravities of the two elements widely differ,
air has still its measurable weight, just as water has.
Its pressure upon the surface of the sea being, as we
all know in these comparatively enlightened days,
something like 15 pounds to the square inch: or, to
speak more accurately, its weight is equal to 14.7304
pounds on each square inch.

This is not so very much less than that of the
steam in the old low pressure boilers of our engines;
if, however, we desire to understand what that
means, we find a good illustration in the fact that
the body of a man of ordinary size sustains a pressure
of about fourteen tons. * In consequence, however,
of this pressure being equally exerted in every direc-
tion, both within and without the body, we sustain it
unconsciously, though the addition even of a single
pound, placed say upon the hand, is sensibly felt.
Such, however, is the Law of Nature: equal forces,
exerted in opposite directions, neutralize each other.

The winds of course represent the currents of the
atmospheric sea, this is easily understood ; but as
regards its tides the matter is not so clear. Never-
theless the subject is one of vast importance. They
ebb and flow according to the season, exactly as do
the marine tides: high tide being in this case repre-

* Encyd. Brit., gth edit., Vol. iii, p. 28.

ATMOSPHERIC OCEAN TIDES. 147

sented by regions of high pressure, and low tides
by areas of opposite conditions. — There are two of
these great regions of high atmospheric pressure,
one to the north, and the other to the south of the
equator, both of which extend precisely as in the case
of our Climatic Zones, as broad belts completely round
the earth. The highest of these tides is usually
located during winter in the centre of a great continent
—notably in that of Central Asia ; and in the summer
time they shift to the surface of the ocean, which
then becomes the area where the maximum atmo-
spheric pressure prevails, especially in the Southern
hemispheres, (where the location is much less subject
to change than in the Northern, because of the
enormously greater predominance of ocean there). The
most common location for the area of maximum
pressure at this time of year may be generally roughly
said to be about latitude 30. * This, however, is a
general indication of an approximate nature only.

The weight of the atmosphere is generally measured
by the barometer, which rises with increasing pressure ;
whereas, as a weather-glass, the barometer only
inferentially indicates what the weather is likely to be.
Dry air is heavier than damp air: therefore when
the barometer goes up, we infer that it will be fine
weather, because the air is comparatively dry. Sudden
ups and downs in the glass, however, are probably
caused by the transit of a great atmospheric billow
in the zenith; as this passes above us, the increased
weight of the air causes the mercury to rise, and when

* The British Admiralty has published a series of charts, which show
the mean pressure of the atmosphere over the Ocean, at the different
seasons.

148 GREAT ATMOSPHERIC BILLOWS.

a " depression " is passing overhead (like the trough
of the sea between the waves), it falls in a cor-
responding degree.

Great cyclones, in point of fact, are simply gigantic
eddies of the atmospheric ocean, having a diameter it
may be of several hundreds of miles, which circle
round just like the eddies of a river, as they move along
the stream. These immense aerial whirlpools will of
course draw the clouds towards them, while the de-
scending eddies of cold air, will cause them to be
precipitated in rain ; but it does not necessarily follow
that these extensive cyclonic areas, are accompanied
by wind storms. When the wind circles round these
Vast arenas, it is apt to do so more slowly than in
the smaller cyclones, where the velocity of the whirl
is much greater: a small but rapid whirlwind will
therefore usually create a deep but transient depression,
which as it passes overhead, is immediately indicated
on earth by a sudden and correspondingly large fall in
the barometer, an instrument which, as we have said,
is merely a machine for measuring the height, or in
other words, the weight, of the atmosphere, as indeed
its name denotes. *

A heavy fall in the glass therefore warns us that
one of these deep and probably violent cyclonic de-
pressions is approaching ; the greater and more sudden
that fall is, the more serious the disturbance of the
weather is likely to be : and yet it may after all pass
by, and nothing may happen ; this is because these
storms, in their furious and erratic course, are often
deflected from their original direction; and so, after

* The word "Barometer" being formed of two Greek words, " §CCQO$,"
weight, and "jifrpov," a measure — i.e. "a measure of weight."

WEATHER INDICATIONS BY BAROMETERS. 149

merely threatening a locality with their invasion, they are
turned aside, and go off elsewhere. In this case, if
we watch the newspapers, we shall probably hear of
its effects at the points which had to undergo the brunt
of the attack, that we have been fortunate enough to
escape. At other times it may be that we may en-
counter a short but sharp stormy interval: this is the
same thing varied only by the fact that, instead of
escaping in toto, we have in this case come in for
"the tail of the storm," and so have experienced the
partial effects of the inrush of air from the edge towards
the centre of the disturbance.

Having now briefly sketched some of the most pro-
minent features connected with the barometer in its
relation to atmospheric disturbances, we shall bring
this chapter to a close, and with it the first division
of our work; and next proceed to describe, in their
order of succession, our six great Climatic Zones.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT FOREST REGION OF THE EQUATORIAL ZONE.

Its Position, Extent, and Characteristics. Its Perpetual Verdure.
Rapid Transition from Day to Night. Beauty of the Equatorial Dawn.
Malarious Districts. Precautions for Preserving Health. Healthy Sta-
tions. Their Mean Temperature. The Question of European Acclima-
tization. Anecdote of the " Deadly Climate" of Africa. The Liquor
Traffic in Africa. The White Man's Example to the Negro. The
Inhabitants of the Equatorial Zone. Their Antiquity. The Struggle for
Existence against Exuberant Vegetation. Equatorial Africa. Equatorial
America. The Malay Archipelago. Ceylon and Southern India. Evi-
dences of Ancient Civilization. Disappearance of Ancient Races.
Abandonment of the Great Cities of Antiquity. Probably due to
Pestilence. Drought, Famine, and Pestilence at Ceara. "Dry Districts"
in the Equatorial Zone, how Accounted for. The Great Primeval
Forest Region. Forests of the Upper Congo. Stanley's Great
Forest March. Twilight Caused by the Density of Equatorial
Forests. Open Plains and Bush Country in the Equatorial Zone. How
accounted for. The Great Amazonian Forest. Difficulties of Travelling
in it. " Blazing" a Path through the Forest. Profusion of Plant Life
in Equatorial Forests. Their Enormous Unexplored Area and Vegetable
Treasures. The Great Forests of the Gaboon. Gigantic Trees and
Lovely Forest Scenes. Apparent Dearth of Flowers. The Equatorial
Forest as A Forest. Its Several Distinct Tiers of Arborescent Growth.
Gigantic Trees of the First and Highest Tier. Shade-Loving Trees or
the Second Tier of Forest Growths. Dwarf Palms and Tree Ferns, or
the Third Tier. Herbaceous Plants. Glories of the Tree Ferns.
Schweinfurth's "Gallery Forests." Deadly Nature of the Climate in
Heavy Forests Generally Exaggerated. Experience of the Emin Pasha
Relief Expedition. Europeans struck down by Fever on Leaving the
Forest and Entering the Open Country. Explanation of this Remark-
able Fact. Natural Curiosities of the Equatorial Forest. Buttressed
Trunks. Height of Some Great Trees, and Consequent Difficulties in
Determining their Species. Imperfect State of Knowledge Respecting
"Jungle Trees." Surface Roots. Air Roots. Great Indian Banyan
Trees. Description of a Tree of this Species in Milton's "Paradise
Lost." African Banyan Tree. The Sacred Bo-Tree of India. Supposed
Origin of this Superstition. Seedlings Growing Upon and Destroying
Buildings. Air Roots Running Down Walls, etc. Vegetation Effacing
the Works of Man. Tropical Foliage. Leaves of Seedlings Larger than
those of Mature Trees. Probable Explanation of this Fact. Palm

150

THE EQUATORIAL FOREST ZONE. 151

Leaves. Palm Trees in a Gale. Areca Palms. Gigantic Palm Leaves.
Height of Lofty Palms. Bamboos. The Growth of Bamboos.
Bamboos seen at Night. The Great Repose of Nature. Tropical
Creepers. Rattans. Great Thickets in Tropical Forests. Their Gloomy
and Impassable Character. Lianas. Their Occasional Gigantic Size and
Magnificent Flowers. Orchids. Vanilla. Foliage Plants. Shade-Loving
Plants. Brilliant Colourings of Young Leaves and Shoots. Necessity
for a Good Glass in Examining Jungle Trees. Jungle Paths. Tropical
Fruits. Bananas as an Article of Food. Their Varieties.
Banana Leaves. Leaf of the Musa Ensete. The Bread Fruit Tree.
Mangoes. The Coolness of Tropical Fruits. Power of Vegetables of
Adjusting Their Own Temperature. Cause of the Coolness of Fruits.
Animal Heat and Vegetable Temperature Contrasted. The Commercial
Products of the Equatorial Zone. Medical Treasures. Cinchona Trees.
The Introduction of Cinchona into India. Attempts by Peruvian
Government to Prevent the Export of Seeds. The Value of Quinine to
Explorers. Indian and Ceylon Cinchona Plantations. The Discovery of
Quinine. Noble Conduct of Two Young French Chemists. Paltry
Reward Granted for Their Services. Illustrious Deeds of Men of War
and of Peace Contrasted.

IF we take the Equator as a central line dividing
our globe into two hemispheres we have two belts of
country extending on either side of it, as far as Lat.
15° N., and Lat. 15° S., which together occupy a
section of the earth's surface, 1 800 geographical miles
in width,* forming the great Equatorial Forest Zone,
and extending through the calm belt of low atmospheric
pressures where rains fall throughout the year, into the
region of the double rainy seasons, where they fall for
at least half the year.

The wide area included within the above limits,
gives us on the whole perhaps a more correct idea of
these great forest regions, than a subdivision into a

* This coincides with Meyen's division of the range of temperature
into zones. See his Outlines of the Geography of Plants, 1854, p. 161.
But his divisions are generally too numerous and complicated to receive
general acceptance — though we regard his work as deserving of a high
place in the science of geographical botany, and we follow his range of
equatorial climates, in preference to some of the more modern com-
mentators.

152 EQUATORIAL CLIMATES.

smaller, and more strictly speaking equatorial belt,
lying exclusively within the zone of constant rains;
because large areas of the heavy forest generally extend
far beyond these limits, though its most characteristic
features are of course more strongly marked towards
its centre, than on its outer edges, where on account
of the occurrence of dry periods, we begin to enter
the region of deciduous trees. It is for these reasons
that we have adopted Meyen's limits for the equatorial
regions. It will, however, readily be understood that
no hard and fast line is drawn in Nature, and that in
all cases one class of vegetation is only gradually
supplanted by another.

The whole of this great region may, however, gene-
rally speaking, be described as a hot, damp climate,
with little change of season throughout the year. The
successions of summer and winter are alike unknown—
the climate on the whole most closely resembling that
of a perpetual spring, a wonderful equability of tempera-
ture constituting its most remarkable feature. It is
never cool ; but, on the other hand, the extreme heats
which prevail further to the northward and southward,
are never felt here; from the superabundance of vapour
always present in the air, the atmosphere is generally
to a certain extent misty, and thus the fiercer heats of
the rays of the vertical sun are less strongly felt: so
much so, that the newcomer is often surprised to find
himself so little oppressed by the heat; it is rather
the long unbroken continuity of high temperatures
than the great heat, which proves trying to the Eu-
ropean resident.

In these regions flowers bloom throughout the entire
year; fruits of various kinds follow each other in con-

EQUATORIAL VEGETATION. 153

tinual succession ; and the spectacle of a tree covered
with flowers, while the ripening fruits hang from its
branches, is common. The trees as a rule are always
green, very few being deciduous, indeed a tree without
leaves is generally a dead one: except perhaps the
" Bombacece " or Wild Cotton Trees * — splendid trees
with thorny trunks, which in spring appear bare of
leaves, and covered with a magnificent display of
large crimson flowers. There are some few other sorts
of the same habit, but these exceptions to the general
rule are comparatively rare.

The prevailing tint of the landscape is a dark and
rather sombre green, very striking at first to the
newcomer — conveying to the mind an idea of boundless
fertility, but apt to become somewhat monotonous, as
the eye gets accustomed to it; and as a rule the land
in its natural condition, even to the top of the hills,
is covered with a dense mass of verdure.

The rapid growth of vegetation in these regions is
something that must be seen to be fully realized, as
it would otherwise appear altogether incredible to
residents in temperate climates: " beneath a vertical
sun, new leaves and buds unfold almost before the
eye, and fresh shoots may often be observed to have
grown many inches since the preceding day. " f

Another characteristic which is always very striking
to strangers, is the rapid succession of day and night.
The length of the days in these latitudes is of course
pretty well the same throughout the year ; but it is

* A good example is the Red Cotton Tree or Bombax Melibaricum
of Ceylon and British India. The bark of these trees is generally
covered with spines.

f Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 22.

154 THE EQUATORIAL DAWN.

the sudden transition from light to darkness which is
so remarkable; and though somewhat exaggerated
descriptions of this phenomenon are prevalent, it is
nevertheless exceedingly impressive. Mr. Wallace in
his " Tropical Nature " has endeavoured to place an
accurate picture of it before his readers, and says that :

" at the end of about 25 minutes from sunset, complete
darkness of night is almost reached. In the morning the
changes are perhaps even more striking. Up to 5.15 a.m.
the darkness is complete, about 5.30 a.m. the first glimmer
of light becomes perceptible. It slowly becomes lighter, and
then increases so rapidly that about 5.45 it seems full day-
light. For the next 15 minutes this changes very little, when
suddenly the sun's rim appears above the horizon." — " The
first hour of the morning," (Mr. Wallace proceeds to remark),
" in the equatorial regions, possesses a charm and a beauty
that can never be forgotten, and its temperature is the most
delicious conceivable." *

This exceeding loveliness of the early morning, in
tropical countries, has attracted the universal attention
of travellers; and those who value their health will do
well to be up, so as to take advantage of it : provided
they are not actually passing through malarious dis-
tricts where ample experience has shown that it is
dangerous to be out before the sun is well up. f

Usually, however, when travellers are on the move,
a general reveille is sounded a good hour before
sunrise, so that the march may commence with the

* Tropical Nature, p. 22.

7 Europeans should make it a point to take a large cup of strong
coffee, and something to eat, before venturing out. In malarious
districts 3 or 4 grains of Quinine should be taken as an additional
precaution — and they should always sleep under mosquito curtains.
Those who lie in bed till the sun gets powerful soon lose their health,
as it is too hot by 9 a.m. to take exercise with comfort.

AN EQUATORIAL SUNRISE. 155

dawn. Almost all the native inhabitants of these
countries are up at about this hour — with the sun,
in fact. At that hour, Nature seems, with one consent,
to awaken from its slumbers, and as the first rosy
tints of the morning- begin to redden the Eastern
horizon, the silence of the night is broken in upon by
the calls of birds, the busy hum of insect life, and
other tokens which indicate that the advent of the
great luminary of the day is the accepted signal bidding
them go forth to pursue their daily round of active
existence.

In these damp equatorial climates the morning air
is generally at this time heavy with mist: and white,
smoke-like wreaths of vapour appear drawn like a
bridal veil across the face of Nature, the lofty heads
of palms and other trees seeming to rise above it, as
if starting from the surface of a sea of vapour. But
these fogs are quickly dispersed as the sun, arising
in fiery glory, bathes the landscape in a flood of light,
causing every dewdrop to sparkle like a diamond upon
the dripping foliage. The air, too, is often filled with
a balsamic fragrance exhaled by aromatic shrubs and
grasses, or with the scent of flowers borne aloft on
some of the numerous trailing creepers, which entwine
themselves like cordage amongst the trees.

But unfortunately, beneath an exterior often exquis-
itely beautiful there is apt to lurk an element that goes
far to neutralize many of its charms ; for these places,
especially when situated upon the coast line of countries
within the equatorial zone, are frequently notoriously
unhealthy ; for instance, it is only necessary to mention
the British and other settlements on the West Coast
of Africa, which may most of them be described as

156 EVENING — THE HEAVY DEWS.

deadly to Europeans. This extreme unhealthiness is
no doubt in a great part due to the vicinity of a low-
lying, swampy fringe of forest country ; which extends
pretty well everywhere along that coast. Here, in cer-
tain situations (during the evenings especially), the
fragrant atmosphere already described is apt to give
place to one in which a sickly odour of decaying
vegetable matter is often plainly perceivable, and which
is at times so strong as to be quite perceptible on
board vessels some miles from the coast. * It is one
of the wise and beneficent provisions of Nature, which
always associates evil odours with that which is hurt-
ful, and fragrant odours with health and things beautiful.

The balsamic freshness and fragrance of the early
morning in these equatorial climates is, therefore, when
met with, more or less an indication of a salubrious
district. On the other hand, this instinctive loathing of
what is bad for us is a remarkable fact in our organization.

In like manner, after the exhausting, stove-house-
like temperature of the day, the close of the evenings
prove brief but delightful periods of enjoyment — but
hardly has darkness closed in before it is followed by
a copious fall of dew, so heavy that clothing becomes
wet through in a short time. The traveller who values
his health can never be too cautious in shielding him-
self from its baneful effects; if suitable houses with
proper verandahs attached are not at hand, a good
tent is a positive necessity almost everywhere within
the equatorial zone. It is mere suicidal folly for the
European traveller to expose himself, without proper
shelter, to the night-dews in these damp regions.

* The Influence of Tropical Climates in Producing Disease, by
Sir James R. Martin, 1861, p. 36 (Quoted from Works of Dr. Daniell).

EFFECTS OF A WINTERLESS CLIMATE. 157

Except at great altitudes such climates are always
found more or less prejudicial to the health of European
residents, even while taking every precaution. Neverthe-
less some few exceptionally healthy stations situated
upon the coast line, near the equator, may be enumer-
ated ; as for instance Para, on the mouth of the Amazon, *
and the Dutch settlement at Batavia in Java; and
especially our own important naval station at Singapore,
which is reported to be one of the healthiest places in
he tropics, though situated only about 80 miles north
of the line : f this is mainly owing to its situation
on a low but healthy island, where there* is almost
always a light but pleasant breeze blowing, while the
nights especially are very cool and refreshing, and
enable people to sleep without difficulty.

Still, even though no regular endemic fever prevails,
" Europeans cannot escape the debilitating influence
of a hot, damp, winterless climate ; there are therefore
very few rosy cheeks in Singapore. Curiously enough
the neighbouring territory of Johore on the mainland,
is very unhealthy; and still more deadly is the adjacent
island of Sumatra, where the Dutch troops die like sheep. "§

In no part of the world, perhaps, is the aspect of a
place as regards the prevailing winds so important as
in these equatorial countries, where the still, steamy,
moisture-laden atmosphere maintains the temperature,
day and night, throughout the year, almost constantly
at a fixed point. At Batavia, for instance, one of

* We regret to say that recent accounts show that yellow fever seems
gradually to be becoming endemic at this previously healthy station :
probably on account of its insanitary and dirty condition.

f Encyclop. Brit., gth Edit., Vol. xxii, p. 93.

§ Seas and Skies in Many Latitudes, by the Hon. R. Abercromby,
1888, p. 303.

158 EQUATORIAL STORMS.

the good stations just mentioned, the average daily
range of the thermometer does not exceed more than
about 11° F. — say from about 79° to 90° as a per-
manent temperature. There can be no doubt that it is
this unbroken continuity of these high temperatures,
especially by night, which proves so debilitating to
the European resident, and predisposes to enlargements
of the visceral organs, so frequently observed amongst
them.

The exceedingly still and sultry atmosphere is,
however, frequently refreshed and broken in upon by
rainstorms, which are often accompanied by thunder
and fierce gusts of wind; such storms have a great
and immediate effect in cooling the air ; and while they
last, the gusts are often quite cold and chilly. The
sudden way in which these storms sometimes come
up has been described in our chapter on Climates and
Temperatures. The dense blackness of the clouds, and
angry look of the sky, at such times, is often quite a
thing to be seen, and when the storm at length bursts
the effect is sometimes grand in the extreme: the
constant roll of thunder; the furious gusts of wind;
the tremendous downpour of rain, as if it proceeded
from the strainer of a shower bath; all combine to
form a scene which can never be forgotten.

Nevertheless, the great cyclones very rarely affect
the Equatorial Zone of constant rains and calms — great
hurricanes, cyclones, or typhoons (or whatever other
name they may be called by) seldom coming down
nearer than within 5 or 6 degrees of the equator * —

* See, The Principal Winds of the Globe, Rains, Ice-Limits, Fogs,
Rollers, and Revolving Storms, by Captain Robert Jackson, R.N.,
1890, p. 26 (British Naval Pamphlet).

THE REGION OF CONSTANT RAINS. 159

that is to say, they rarely overstep what we have
ventured to assign as the approximate limits of the zone
of double rainy seasons, on their equatorial boundaries.

Equatorial storms, therefore, such as we are now
referring" to, are generally of but brief and ephemeral
character. They are grand and imposing while they
last; and no less so in the rapid manner in which
they generally pass away; the perfect stillness that
succeeds one of these passing storms always being
most impressive, as if the word of Divine command
" Peace Be still ! " had been sent forth. In the region
of the Double Rainy Seasons, say between the paral-
lels of 5 to 15 degrees of latitude, or thereabouts these
storms, however, increase in violence, and last longer than
they do in the calm belt, where constant rains prevail.

What is meant by the term " constant rains " is that
very little difference exists between what are considered
the wet and dry parts of the year; the days being
always liable to be varied with intervals of rain and
sunshine ; only at the time of the transit of the sun
in the zenith, in spring and autumn, the rains that
follow are generally heavier for the time being than
at other times. Thus at Batavia (Lat. 6° 8' o" N., Long.
1 06° 48' 7" E.*) this is exactly the climate that prevails,
throughout the year, " little difference existing between
the wet and dry seasons, but generally the dry season
which lasts from July to December, is varied with
showers, and the wet, from January to June, with
sunny days." f

At places on the other side of the equator, these

* See Norries' Navigation, 2ist edit., 1877, "Tables of Geographical
Positions," and that of " The Batavia Observatory."

f Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 26.

160 EUROPEAN ACCLIMATIZATION.

seasons are reversed, the most rain falling from January
to June and the least from July to December, while
the temperature is maintained pretty constant all the
time, say from 86 to 88 degrees Fahr. in the shade
daily, with occasional increases of heat up to 90° F.

The question as to how far Europeans may become
acclimatized by long residence in these climates, is
one which has always been keenly debated, but it
would be too long to cite the opinions of the various
authorities which have been consulted upon this im-
portant point; it must therefore suffice to briefly state
that although Europeans may reside for years at a
few exceptionally favourable stations where the nights
are comparatively cool, and where no endemic form of
malarial fever is prevalent, without feeling the worse
for it; yet the European never becomes acclimatized;
and the comparative immunity which experienced resi-
dents seem to acquire, is due rather to the adoption
of certain necessary precautions, taken at last almost
unconsciously to themselves, as part of their daily habits,
than to any immunity conferred by acclimatization.

The newcomer on the other hand, brings out with
him a store of robust health from the temperate zone,
which for a time will often enable him to do things
which the old stager would never think of doing;
until at length he is perhaps suddenly cut down by
some attack of disease of a malignant type, not neces-
sarily the result of a deadly climate, but rather of
imprudence. It is against these preventible casualties
that the old resident has learned to protect himself.
These considerations, therefore, to a certain extent
enable us to discount the confident assertion of some
who tell us, " I lived for so many years, at such a

THE DEADLY CLIMATE OF AFRICA. 161

place, and did not feel the worse for it " — and on
the other hand we can appreciate at their true value
the often highly exaggerated reports which are current
as to the deadly climate of certain notoriously unhealthy
places. As an illustration of how places sometimes
acquire a bad name in this way, we may cite an amusing
instance, related by the late Sir Richard Burton, as
occurring on the west coast of Africa: —

"I went" (he says) "to the English factory; the head
agent was absent, leaving business in the hands of two * mean
whites.' The factory, a dirty disgrace to the name, was in
charge of a clerk, whom we saw being rowed about, bareheaded,
through the sun, accompanied by a black girl, both as far
from sober as might be. The cooper, moony with drink,
rose to receive us, and to weigh out the beads I required.
Under the excitement he had recourse to the gin bottle, and
a total collapse came on before half the work was done." —
"Why" (exclaims poor Sir R. Burton in a burst of scornful
irony) — "Why should south latitude 6 degrees be so fatal
to the Briton?" *

Perhaps we might be pardoned for offering a few
remarks at this point upon drink and the 'drink traffic
upon the African coasts. There can be no doubt that
the extreme monotony of existence at many of these
places, where there is not a single thing to do which
can afford healthy recreation to the small knot of
Europeans condemned to dwell there, together with
the exhaustion produced by the debilitating climate,
largely contributes to this pernicious habit of " taking
stimulants." Dram drinking, a bad and demoralizing
practice everywhere, is peculiarly fatal under the rays

* Gorilla Land, by Captain (afterwards Sir) R. F. Burton, Vol. i.
P- 145-

VOL. I. II

1 62 THE AFRICAN COAST DRINK TRAFFIC.

of a vertical sun. Moreover rum, and other products
of the sugar cane, which are so extensively used in
Africa, and the West Indies, are perhaps the very
worst and most unwholesome form of spirits, for use
in these climates. The gin is mostly of Dutch manu-
facture and is largely imported by the Portuguese.
We may cite an instance in point, recently reported
from Delagoa Bay, where we are told, " a ship came
in with a cargo of 900 demijohns of Holland gin-
here satirically termed 'Missionaries' — this precious
stuff being — * 56 over proof strength' " *

After being duly " mixed " for use, it seems this
consignment was intended for the benefit of the native
tribes to the northward of the British South African
possessions, where its " missionary " qualities will doubt-
less be duly appreciated. The native races here, as
everywhere, unfortunately seeming to possess a special
talent for picking up all the vices of the White man,
with but few, or none, of his virtues. Also it is to be
feared that many of the " White pioneers of Civilization "
are not always altogether favourable specimens of
European progress; their language and conduct at
times being such as would be deemed entirely out of
order at an evangelical meeting in Exeter Hall.
Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered
at that the efforts of missionary societies are not
always as successful as the public at home sometimes
seem to suppose. These considerations recall to our
memory the pungent remark of an old Guinea Coast
Captain, made in our hearing, during a discussion upon
these subjects, many years ago. Something happened

* The Prisoner of Chiolane — or with the Portuguese in S.E. Africa,
by Wallis Mackay, 1891, p. 33.

MAN IN EQUATORIAL REGIONS. 163

which caused the Captain to observe that it was " all
d — d humbug. " His interlocutor, " miffed " at the
unceremonious reply wanted to know what he meant
by " humbug. " " A cargo of Missionaries and Bibles
in the cabin, and a cargo of idols, cheap trade muskets,
and rum in the hold," that, so the Captain said,
conveyed a good idea of what he called " hum-
bug. " — Leaving the reader to form his own conclusions
upon these matters, we pass to the more direct con-
sideration of our subject.

Taking the equatorial zone as a whole, though it
is everywhere dotted over with the dwellings of man,
probably from periods of immense antiquity, it may be
safely affirmed that nowhere, except perhaps in the
arctic regions, has the wilderness so firmly and con-
stantly maintained its dominion. In the arctic zone,
of course, the habitations of man have been restricted
by the barren soil and the rigour of the climate.
Here, on the contrary, it is by the exuberance of
Nature that he has been overwhelmed, for even assum-
ing that man, such as we find him in these hot coun-
tries, was possessed of the physical energy necessary
to keep in check the rapid accumulations of vegetable
growths, and the innumerable armies of insect life
which destroy his crops, a continual struggle for
existence is created, in which man, unless confining
his efforts to a very small area, or working in numer-
ous communities, would soon be tired out, and all
evidence of human works quickly hidden under a thick
canopy of perpetual verdure. His permanent settlements
within the equatorial zone, are therefore mostly confined
to cities and other centres of population, planted on
the sea coasts or upon the banks of navigable rivers,

164 THE GREAT PRIMEVAL FOREST.

many of which have evidently been selected because
special circumstances seemed to favour the efforts of
the human settlers, such as the sandy, rocky, or otherwise
sterile nature of the soil ; or the existence of dry districts
which, owing to these and other local causes, sometimes
occur within the equatorial zone.

In saying so, it must be understood, however, that
we speak in general terms of this great region as a
whole; we are quite aware that numerous instances
might be mentioned where the forests are cleared away
and flourishing settlements are well known to occur,
as for example in Ceylon and other places ; but our
business is rather to describe the equatorial zone as
it generally exists, under its natural aspects, throughout
by far the largest portion of its area — namely, that of
a great region of primeval forests.

If we take the map, and run our eye over the
equatorial regions, and think of the conditions of the
countries traversed by the equator, we shall find that
this description of it is, in the main, substantially
correct.

The principal portion of its terrestrial surface, as
will be seen, lies in Africa and South America. In
Africa, so far as is known, over by far the greater
part of this area the primeval forest extends almost
from sea to sea. Where exceptions to this rule are
found to occur, they can in all probability be traced
to peculiarities of soil, or to a great elevation of the
land above sea-level : the more luxuriant and heavier
forest growths usually existing on the western half
of the continent; and the more open and dwarfer
forest upon its eastern side — while so far as human
progress is concerned, practically nothing has been

THE FOREST DWELLING TRIBES. 165

effected, unless a few small trading posts upon the
coasts deserve the name. The rest is the abode of
wandering tribes of savages of the lowest type, but at the
same time probably the most ancient of any now ex-
isting races of the human family. So little was known
of this region that it was only the expeditions led by
Mr. Stanley which have lately announced to the world
that the vast forests of the Upper Congo existed at
all; and what their area may be is still unknown.

If we take the case of the equatorial regions in
South America, substantially the same description holds
good with regard to them. A few travellers have
here and there penetrated the wilderness by the aid
of the numerous great rivers that there find their way
through the forest to the sea — but only to tell us that
by far the greater part of it is a great forest country
with occasional open and elevated plains, mostly
inhabited by races of hopeless savages, less ancient,
perhaps, than their African brothers, but still very old.
A few scattered bands of white settlers have, however,
located themselves upon the banks of the principal
rivers, and there, by the aid of negro slaves, contrive
to maintain a precarious existence, principally by trading
in the raw products of the forest— and that is all.

Proceeding then towards the far east, we find in
the Malay Archipelago, and other portions of territory
included within the equatorial zone in that region, the
same story practically repeated — forests, nothing but
forests, almost everywhere, inhabited by copper-coloured
races of whom comparatively little is known. These
great islands are, it is true, marked upon the map as
"British," "Dutch," or "German," etc., but their rule,
except at a few points, is merely nominal, only a com-

1 66 THE BRITISH IN CEYLON.

paratively small portion of the whole country being
under their direct administration — the real ruler for the
most part is the spirit of the wilderness. Indeed, ex-
cept at Singapore and Batavia, both of which are
flourishing settlements, and a few other points, there
are hardly any considerable exceptions to this rule.

But as we proceed towards the northern limits of
the equatorial zone, as for example, to Ceylon, and
Southern India — we find the wet and dry seasons
gradually becoming more and more clearly marked,
and as they become so, the evidences of human occu-
pation increase. The same thing we find repeated
upon the great American continent upon a lesser scale ;
and though there can be no doubt that the whole of
this country was originally one vast forest region, the
numerous and industrious populations, living together
in village communities, have by degrees brought large
areas under cultivation. In Ceylon, for instance, the
population is nearly two and a half millions, and there
are numerous European settlers ; nevertheless, the " British
Encyclopaedia " tells us that generally even now u the
summits of the highest ridges are clothed with verdure,
while the slopes of the hills, till the last few years, were
covered with forests of gigantic and valuable trees, which
have now disappeared under the axe of the planter —

Under the able administration of British rulers the
prosperity and trade of the island, we are happy to
say, have of late years enormously increased — but though
enormous clearances have been made for tea estates
there are large areas of land still buried under an almost
impenetrable forest-growth.

* Encycl. Brit., gth edit., Vol. v., pp. 359 to 365 — Article "Ceylon."

DESERTED CITIES OF ANTIQUITY. 167

The same observations may be said to apply to
Southern Hindustan ; both there, and in Ceylon, numer-
ous ruins and other historical remains bear evidence
of a very ancient prosperity, shown by the existence
of extensive tanks, dams, and other hydraulic engineer-
ing* works ; as well as by the remains of ancient cities
and temples, which conclusively prove the former
existence of large populations which had attained to
a high state of civilization. Nor are similar indications
uncommon in America ; even in Africa similar remains
have been found. But what has become of all these
numerous and prosperous communities ? and why have
they abandoned the homes of their fathers ? — Historical
considerations of this kind are, of course, somewhat
foreign to the general scope of our subject. In works
relating to the history of ancient eastern civilizations,
however, there seems to be a general disposition to
attribute the disappearance of these peoples to wars,
or civil commotions. All that we shall venture to say
on this head is, that though the losses due to those
causes may often have been enormous, they have rarely
or never been proved to be capable of destroying as
fast as the bounty of Nature has been able to recon-
stitute.

It can easily be shown, by way of analogy, for
instance, that notwithstanding all the great public
calamities, wars, pestilences, and troubles of every
kind, which have afflicted Europe almost from time
immemorial, and in spite of the enormous emigration
of the last two or three hundred years, both wealth
and population have constantly increased there. Why
should it be different in Asia ? — In a splendid passage
in his " History of England, " Lord Macaulay has pointed

1 68 HUMAN PROGRESS IN TROUBLOUS TIMES.

out the same fact, with regard to the increase of capital
in our own country.

"It has often been found," he says, "that profuse ex-
penditure, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions,
corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, persecutions, seditions,
conflagrations, inundations, have not been able to destroy
capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been
able to create it." *

And he proceeds to remind us that throughout the long
civil war which was waged between Charles I. and
his Parliament, and also after the cessation of active
hostilities, when — " 13 years followed, during which
England was, under various forms and names, really
governed by the sword " f — this growth of material
prosperity was still kept up. He might with equal
truth have added, that notwithstanding all these infinite
calamities, population as well as wealth had slowly but
still continuously increased. He, however, confines his
observations here to the increase of capital: a com-
modity which, during such a time, might well have
been expected to show a decline — yet in spite of
everything this national wealth (which after all is the
truest test of prosperity) kept steadily increasing; and
he maintains,

" that in spite of sieges, and confiscations, it was greater
on the day of the Restoration than on the day when the
long Parliament met;" that "in spite of mal-administration,
of extravagance, of public bankruptcy, of two costly and
unsuccessful wars, of the pestilence, and of the fire, it was
greater on the day of the death of Charles II. than on the
day of his restoration." §

* History of England, by Macaulay, T866, Vol. i, pp. 279 — 80.

f Ibid., p. 120.

§ Ibid., pp. 279 — 80.

PESTILENCE IN ORIENTAL CITIES. 169

These are remarkable facts, and they speak volumes
for the robust tenacity and vitality of the British
race.

How then can we account for the disappearance of
whole races of mankind, and the total abandonment
of the great cities of antiquity, which we find con-
stantly recorded in oriental history ? Might not these
things have been due to Pestilence, rather than to
misrule or the incursions of hordes of barbaric con-
querors ?

We know that whenever a numerous population is
gathered together under insanitary conditions, beneath
the influence of a powerful sun, epidemics of malignant
character are certain to follow, and that so long as
these conditions continue disease is likely to prove
endemic. We can scarcely therefore be surprised if,
in these cases of the great cities of antiquity, it should
eventually have necessitated their complete evacuation ;
especially in an age of superstition, when pestilence
was always regarded as of supernatural origin, sent
in fact, " as a punishment from Heaven, because of
the sins of the people." There can be no doubt, if
we may venture so to express it, that there is a sin
which is certain to bring pestilence upon a city, and
that is — neglect of the sanitary laws of Nature. If
there is one precept of the natural law more clearly
laid down for our guidance than any other, so that he
who runs may read, it is that, " Where there is dirt,
there will be disease." It is desirable, therefore, not to
lose sight of these facts when seeking for the probable
cause of the abandonment of ancient cities and great
works of national utility, with which India, Ceylon,
Mexico, Egypt, and other countries are replete.

1 70 PESTILENCE IN CEARA.

Here perhaps we could not do better than cite a
remarkable instance, occurring in our own day, where
enormous losses, considering the number of the popu-
lation, have been recorded, which at one time bid fair
to depopulate the whole surrounding country. This
calamity took place in a dry and almost rainless
district, which furnishes a most curious example of
one of these exceptional variations of climate, such as
are occasionally, as we have stated, to be met with
in the equatorial zone.

We refer to the famine and pestilence which com-
mitted such havoc in the province of Ceara, on the
north-east coast of Brazil. Though situated well
within the equatorial zone, only a few degrees to the
southwards of the equator, Ceara is a dry, hot, and
almost rainless region, with cool nights, and intense
solar heats by day, much more characteristic of the
desert, than of the equatorial zone. The Brazilian
" Sertao" or wilderness here forms a broad belt of
wide sandy plains and bush, lying to the southward
of the Amazonian forests at this point, where there
are long dry seasons. During the prevalence of a
prolonged drought in 1877 — 78 (co-temporary with
the great Indian and Chinese famines), three quarters
of a million of people are stated, on good authority,
to have here died of disease and starvation, in the
eight provinces of eastern and central Brazil. The
prevailing types of disease were a form of black
small-pox of malignant character, and a relapsing fever
of typhus-like nature which is often found to follow
in the train of famine. The mortality which followed
the Irish famine of 1846, for instance, was due to a
fever of this type. In the case at present before us,

A DRY EQUATORIAL DISTRICT. 171

however, " in (the town and province of) Ceara alone,
above half a million, or more than one half the popu-
lation, died."*

If so great a mortality could occur in the present
age in spite of the advance of modern science and
knowledge, what might not have taken place during
the dark ages when the grossest ignorance and super-
stition prevailed!

If we proceed to seek for an explanation of so great
an apparent anomaly as the occurrence of this dry
desert region, existing in the moist and rainy equa-
torial zone, the only reason that can be assigned for
it seems to be that suggested by Mr. Wallace — "that
the sandy soil and bare hills produce ascending currents
of heated air, which prevent condensation at this
point." f

Anomalies of this kind, however, will be found to
occur in each of the terrestrial zones, as islands appear
here and there to rise above the surface of the ocean,
or a fertile oasis is found to exist in the midst of the
desert.

We must next turn our attention to the consideration
of the primeval forest, which constitutes the charac-
teristic feature of the equatorial zone, and covers by
far the greater proportion of its surface.

It would indeed require the pen of a ready writer
to do justice to, or even to attempt to portray, in
adequate terms, the magnificence, and the marvels of
these great, almost boundless, wildernesses of tangled
vegetation ; where gigantic trees, and creepers of every

* Brazil, the Amazon and the Coast, by Herbert H. Smith, 1880,
p. 410.

f See Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 19.

172 EQUATORIAL AFRICA.

kind, interlace and crowd each other out of existence,
throughout an immense expanse of territory, most of
it apparently teeming" with exhaustless fertility; but
concerning whose productions, or whose resources,
practically nothing is known. One of the very latest
additions to geographical science, for example, as we
have already mentioned, was the discovery of the great
forests of the Upper Congo, of whose very existence
the world had previously been ignorant.

We may all remember how geographers not con-
tent with simply marking upon our school atlases, this
region as "unknown," persisted in representing the
i nterior of Africa as a vast expanse of sandy desert —
although reflective minds, arguing from analogy, might
very fairly have ventured to conclude that the probabi-
lities were all in favour of the supposition that the
characteristic features of the equatorial zone, as a great
forest region, would be found to exist there also;
especially when numerous great rivers were known to
roll down to the ocean, whose volume precluded the
idea of their proceeding from tracts of waterless deserts
or indeed from anything but a region of rains, whose
certain effect would, under the influence of a tropical
sun, be to cause a luxuriant vegetation to spring
up, even from a sterile soil. But that even learned
men, buried too often in the acquisition of useless lore,
entirely failed to decipher so plain a passage from the
great book of Nature, need cause us no surprise: it
only emphasizes, what we knew before, that man is but
a poor prophet, even the most far-seeing being but
too apt to be led away by erroneous fancies, while
they are blind to palpable facts, daily paraded under
their very eyes.

STANLEY'S GREAT FOREST MARCH. 173

Any estimate as to the probable extent of this great
Central African forest, discovered by» Mr. Stanley, must
of course at present be merely conjecture; but from
the information he could gather, he is disposed to think
that the immense area of upwards of 350,000 square
miles is covered by one practically unbroken forest in
this region. *

Mr. Stanley, as his steamers ascended the Congo
and the Aruwhimi to a point where it was evident
that further progress would have to be by land, had
already passed through immense tracts of forest, which
formed one almost unbroken frontage along the river
bank. He briefly describes the country traversed dur-
ing his now celebrated march, as follows :

" I had been very curious about the limits of this forest
that lay dark and dismal before us, on all sides. I had
asked every native about this forest, but they had never
heard of any limits to it. We marched onwards without a
single day's rest, for one month, daily hewing our way through
the dense undergrowth. So dense is the forest that you
seldom see the sunlight; a mere shaft of light, or a glint
of sunshine, is all we ever saw of the broad daylight and
the bright blue sky without. After 160 days, we emerged
out of the forest and came into the sunshine, and literally
raced through the grassland, like wanton children, so rejoiced
were we at beholding the blue sky, at feeling the pure breeze,,
and seeing the tender grass before us." f

And again in his official report he tells us —

" The journey we were about to undertake was through
one continuous unbroken forest. Though daily expecting to

* See report of Mr. Stanley's speech at a meeting of the R.G.S.,.
reported in the Times of May 6, 1890.

•j- Extract report of speech by Mr. Stanley, at a banquet offered him
by the Egyptian Government at Cairo, Jan. 20, 1890, in Times, Feb..
14, 1890.

174 THE GREAT FOREST THICKETS.

hear from natives some news of a grassy country to the
north, south, or east of them, it was not until we were
seven days' march from the grassy region that we came
across any that had ever heard of grass land; to the rest,
all the world was overgrown with one endless forest. We
had neither seen nor heard of any open space, save the
clearings that had been laboriously made by the natives,
and had to be every season subjected to laborious cutting,
lest the forest should usurp what cultivated space had been
gained." — "Our progress through the dense underwood, which
grew beneath the impervious shades of the forest giants
matted by great cable-like convolvuli, was often only at the
rate of 400 yards an hour, as through such obstructions we
had to tunnel a way for the column to pass." *

This column, it seems, on entering the forest origin-
ally consisted of 389 men, but only 173 came out on
the other side, f The rest had died, or had to be left
behind, disabled by terrible ulcers on the feet and legs,
which incapacitated them from travelling; semi-
starvation, poisoned arrows, and desertion, caused most
of the remaining losses. § Others again straggled from
the route in search of bananas, or other food, and
were never more heard of; for, as Mr. Stanley himself
reminds us, " it is useless to search in the forest for a
lost man, donkey, or article. Like the waves of the
sea, divided by the ship's prow, uniting at the stern;
so the forest enfolds, past finding, within its deep
shades, whosoever enters, and reveals nothing." **

All the accounts which have been published about
this great forest show that it is pretty well everywhere

* Extract from Mr. Stanley's official report of his expedition, of
December 18, 1889 — published in the Times of Feb. 18, 1890.
f Ibid. § Ibid.
** In Darkest Africa, by H. M. Stanley, 1890, Vol. i, p. 195.

LIANAS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 175

thoroughly equatorial in its character ; the gigantic trees,
intermixed with others of smaller dimensions, being
lashed together by millions of lianas and other creepers,
forming a dense and tangled network of vegetable
cordage. The trees also grow so thickly together, that
their branches interlace, and form a canopy almost
entirely impenetrable to sunlight; a solemn gloom
therefore constantly pervades the recesses of these
forests, amounting even on fine days to a regular
twilight, while with misty or rainy weather, the page
of a book becomes unreadable. * In the morning the
march is generally delayed in forests of this dense
character for a considerable time after the sun is up,
before there is sufficient light to enable travellers to
see their way; while by night of course the darkness
is something so intense that it can almost be felt.

Now, in studying this question, we must always
remember that the forest discovered by Stanley, large
as it may be, bears but a very small proportion com-
pared with the vast area of the great equatorial forest
region, when taken as a whole, and that as Mr.
Wallace has pointed out,

"with but few and unimportant exceptions, a great forest
'band'" (of this character) "from 1000 to 1500 miles in
width, girdles the earth at the Equator, clothing hill, plain,
and mountain, with an evergreen mantle. Lofty peaks are
sometimes bare, but often the woody covering continues to
a height of eight or ten thousand feet." f

And, while the late discoveries have served to fill
up a gap upon the map of Africa, they merely tend

* Report of a speech by Mr. Stanley at a meeting of the Royal
Geographical Society, in Times of May 6, 1890.

f Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 27.

176 THE CENTRAL AFRICAN GRASS REGION.

to corroborate the information furnished by a perusal of
the works of previous travellers, which goes far, when
coupled with this new discovery, to establish the fact
that a great and almost unbroken zone of forest country
extends, as we have stated, more or less continuously,
right across the central portion of the African con-
tinent. The occurrence of open grassy plains, at some
points of the interior highlands, as reported by Mr.
Stanley and others, is only what might be expected,
when we consider the great elevation of the land
above sea-level, and the variations of soil, sure to
occur in so vast an extent of territory. So far as
can be judged from our present sources of information,
however, it seems probable that the forest again extends
far, both to the northward and southward, of these
plains; but of course the whole of it is probably not
altogether so dense in its character as that passed
through by Mr. Stanley, upon the upper waters of
the Congo.

As we approach the region of intermittent rains,
open spaces may be expected to become more frequent ;
while stretches of " grass forest," consisting of bamboos
and other gigantic arborescent grasses, will be found
alternating with the heavier forests.

Those who may have honoured us with an attentive
perusal of the preceding portions of this section, will
doubtless have observed that we have extended the
limit of the equatorial forest zone considerably beyond
that adopted by Mr. Wallace, who has fixed it at
i2x/2 degrees north and south of the equator;* whilst
we have followed what is known as "Meyen's division"
of 15° — because wherever there is a hot, moist atmo-

* Tropical Nature, p. 3.

THE GREAT AMAZONIAN FOREST. 177

sphere, and a damp soil, a forest of the equatorial
character will be found pushing up into our next di-
vision— "The Great Bush Country."

This, Mr. Wallace seems practically to admit, for
he is careful to point out that " beyond the forests
both to the north and south, we first meet with woody,
and then open country, soon changing into arid plains,
and even deserts in the vicinity of the two tropics." *
This woody and open (or rather " park-like ") country
is what constitutes the bush region, which runs in, at
intervals, among the heavy forests, at its equatorial
margin, and up into the desert zone adjoining, accord-
ing as the nature and extent of moisture contained
in the soil and atmosphere may determine.

Reverting, however, to our consideration of the
equatorial forest belt, precisely the same conditions
and description of forest existing upon the African
continent are likewise found to recur in America.
In the great Amazonian forest region, for instance,
Mr. Wallace states that — " a circle 1 100 miles in diameter
could be drawn within its limits." f

This enormous forest — whose area, like that of its
African rival, is still most imperfectly known — has
usually been held by writers upon these subjects to
be the most wonderful example as well as the most
perfect type of the equatorial forest in existence, and
very little of it has been regularly explored.

The following picturesque description of a traveller's
sensations when about to enter its shades is from the
pen of Mr. Herbert H. Smith, an American who has
recently returned from Brazil:

* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 28.

f The Amazon and the Rio Negro, by A. R. Wallace, 1853.

VOL. I. 12

178 PATHS IN THE AMAZONIAN FOREST.

" We find " (he says) " a path like a tunnel ; thick branches
meet overhead, and almost conceal the entrance. The air
strikes cool in our faces, and coming in out of the glare we
can hardly see at first, so dark is it. You are aware of a
maze of trunks, a web confusing to the eye and mind. There
are tree trunks and a multitude of vine stems. Near the
ground there are not many leaves, but overhead the boughs
are woven thick like a mat. You can see the blue sky only
in little patches ; stray beams reach the ground sometimes ;
but all around there is only the solemn diffuse light." * —
" It is only " (he continues) " after you have spent days and
weeks here, that you can reason on what you see. You feel
insignificant, even more than on the ocean; at sea there is
always the horizon, and a definite boundary to vision ; alone
in the forest, your insignificance is forced upon you: you
gaze through the net-work of leaves and tree trunks, until
the vision is lost, you know not where. You know that you
have only passed the borders of this infinity, where you could
go on for weeks, months, and never reach the end. You
are alone utterly: an army of men could not find you; your
dearest friend, your most hated foe, could not track you;
the vultures could not find your body, if you died here; you
could not find your way out, but by the path you came over,
or the noted direction; and very few men will care to go
into the forest without companions." f

In fact it is obvious that it would be madness to
attempt to do so, unless accompanied by trustworthy
native guides, or someone skilled in local woodcraft.
Even in the far more open and less confusing mazes
of the North American forests, the instances of persons
who have from time to time lost their lives, by fool-
ishly straying into the wroods alone, are common; but

* Brazil, the Amazon and the Coast, by Herbert H. Smith, 1880,
pp. 179—180.

f Ibid., pp. 185—186.

"BLAZING A TRAIL." 179

this serious casualty of " getting lost, " dangerous enough
in an ordinary forest, becomes almost certain death in
such a region as we are now describing. In the equa-
torial forest, it is in fact perilous to stray from
the path, even for a few yards, as, on account of the
numerous obstacles, it is impossible to hold a straight
course for any distance, the direction during a very
short progress heading towards every point of the
compass, so that a stranger soon loses his idea of di-
rection. Mr. H. H. Smith while travelling in the Bra-
zilian forests states that he engaged the services of
two Indians as guides, and each man carried a ham-
mock, blanket, sack of mandioca meal, wood-knife and
calabash of water; some of the party also had guns
and fishing tackle.

In these countries a " Machete, " or species of stout
slashing knife, with which to cut through obstructive
trailing creepers, forms a necessary part of a man's
equipment, without which it would be impossible to
travel far. Mr. Stanley's expedition seems likewise
to have been well supplied with various kinds of cutting
weapons, and special precautions against getting lost
were wisely adopted, in marking the track, as they
passed along; the orders being that —

" Each man as he walked along, should choose an obstruct-
ing liana or branch, and give one sharp cut and pass on:
the two head men confining themselves to an effective and
broad blaze, on the trees, every ten yards or so. As the
rear party would not follow for two months, we were very
particular" (says Mr. Stanley) "that these blazes should be
quite a hand's breadth peel of bark." *

It is to be feared, however, that in many places the

* In Darkest Africa, by Henry M. Stanley, 1890, Vol. i, p. 142.

l8o THE ANDES RANGE CHECKING FOREST GROWTHS.

rapid growth in the equatorial forests would, in a
very short time, blot out all trace of a former path.
Among the galleries formed under the heavier timber,
sometimes bearing a close resemblance to the aisle of
a great cathedral, the shade is, however, so deep that
vegetation proceeds at a very much slower rate, and
the ground in these places is often bare. In these
portions of the forest therefore, marks might remain
visible for a considerable time.

The size of the South American forests is greatly
curtailed to the westward by the lofty snow-clad
range of the Andes, whose cold altitudes cause the
condensation of the aqueous vapour, with which
the atmosphere is charged, to take place upon their
eastern slopes, where it falls in copious rains, as the
enormous river systems upon that side sufficiently
attest. The wind then descends upon their western
slopes, as dry air; with the result that might have
been anticipated, namely, that (except at points where
the incessant rains prevail, in Ecuador and New Gra-
nada) the heavy forest disappears, and a stunted bush,
or arid plains, take its place, affording (if that were
needed) another proof of how entirely these forests
depend for their existence upon a moist atmosphere and
damp soil; combined, of course, with tropical heat.

The remarkable difference of the climates to the east-
ward and westward of the Cordilleras, has always excited
the astonishment of beholders; for surely nothing can
be more striking than the intensely damp rainy climate
and exuberant vegetation on one side, and the sterile,
arid country, perishing for want of water, on the other.
Generally, however, this has been set down to some
freak of Nature. But Nature is not given to cause-

CENTRAL AMERICAN FORESTS. l8l

less freaks, and the foregoing", as we humbly submit,
is the simple explanation which, together with the
direction of the prevailing winds, accounts, if not
altogether, at any rate mainly, for this apparently
strange anomaly.

The forest region of South America is, in effect,
stopped by these mountains, to the westward, as
effectively as it is by the ocean upon its eastern coast;
but it extends for an immense distance both northwards
and southwards, eastward of the Andes. Its northern
boundaries, in fact, correspond with the coast line, but
the forest is again found running for an altogether
exceptional distance into Central America, where on
account of the prevailing winds, heavily charged with
moisture, magnificent forests, thoroughly equatorial
in their character, occupy pretty well the whole of
the " Tierras Calientes " or hot districts on both coasts,
considerably beyond the limits of our equatorial zone.

It would be almost impossible within reasonable
limits, to give an adequate idea of the variety and
profusion of plant life which is to be seen growing
in extraordinary luxuriance throughout the immense
expanse of these great forests ; whose inmost recesses
have, in fact, as yet been only very partially ex-
plored: enormous areas of virgin forests, still existing
almost everywhere throughout the equatorial zone, which
have never been disturbed by the foot of civilized
man. More especially is this so in Africa. Unfortu-
nately, during the recent great march of Mr. Stanley,
the difficulties of the journey, the scarcity of food, and
hostility of the native tribes, seem to have rendered
any attempt at botanical research impossible; so that

1 82 MEDICINAL VIRTUE, ETC., OF TREES.

beyond the fact of our becoming aware of the existence
of vast forests upon the upper waters of the Congo,
and its tributary streams, very little has been added
to our store of knowledge, so far as their vegetable
products are concerned.

But who shall predict the possibilities of the future ?
It may well be that, as time goes on, future investi-
gations may prove (and as we trust, will prove) that
these forests enclose many trees and plants of great, and
hitherto unknown, medicinal virtues; as well as numer-
ous other treasures of the vegetable kingdom, which
from a commercial, as well as from a horticultural,
point of view, may perhaps prove as important to the
welfare of mankind, and as valuable in a pecuniary
sense, as any of the novelties heretofore introduced to
the world from the Central and South American forests.
We purpose presently to offer a few remarks with
respect to a few of the principal of these botanical
treasures of the western hemisphere: whose value,
as we believe, is even yet but little appreciated at its
true worth, by the general public.

From the fact of there being so little variation in
the seasons, and the almost exclusively evergreen
nature of the trees, the general aspect of forests truly
equatorial in their character, as we have said, exhibits
but little change at any period of the year. The
traveller is also almost always disappointed, on his first
arrival, by the apparent scarcity of brilliant flowers,
and the few visible signs of animal life — not that
there really is any scarcity of either the one or the
other; but rather that these things are, so to speak,
swallowed up in the vast extent of impenetrable thicket,
which rises before one on every side like a living

THE FORESTS OF THE GABOON. 183

wall of verdure. So that before a man can in any way
realize the abundance of magnificent trees and other
beautiful things these forests contain, he must pass some
time in exploration.

The late Major Levison, the well-known sportsman,
(who wrote under the nom-de-plume of H.A.L. "The
Old Shekarry") for instance, in describing his trip into
the deadly forest region of the Gaboon, in Western
Africa, was greatly struck by the exuberant wealth of
its vegetation, and the splendid timber it contained.

" Some of the forest trees" (he says) " were of gigantic
size, having their trunks, which often rose straight for a
hundred feet without throwing out a branch, entwined with
a festoon of beautiful parasitical plants. "* — And again — "In
some parts of the forest a kind of frankincense tree fills
the air with a perfume that is almost oppressive; and I
often fell in with magnificent forest trees that were perfectly
new to me, for which the natives appear to have no name."
— "In one patch of forest I came across a beautiful small
lake covered with waterlilies, having large leaves resembling
those of the Victoria Regina, and here I saw a couple of
' lotus birds.' " f

Baron Humboldt also, the great German philosopher
and traveller, was evidently deeply impressed upon his
first arrival in the equatorial regions, by the luxuriance
and beauty of Nature, and tells us that —

" He is unable to determine what most excites his admira-
tion : the solemn stillness of the wilderness, or the individual
beauty and contrast of forms, or the vigour and freshness
of vegetable life, which characterize the climate of the
tropics." §

* The Forest and the Field, by H. A. L., "The Old Shekarry"
(Major H. A. Levison); 2nd edit., 1867, p. 402.
f Ibid., pp. 448 — 449.
§ Travels, by Baron von Humboldt.

184 FLOWERS IN THE FOREST.

As regards the dearth of flowers Mr. Wallace ob-
serves that —

" in the great virgin forests themselves, flowers are rarely
seen."* — "You may" (he explains) "travel for 100 miles,
and see nothing but the varied greens of the forest foli-
age, and the deep gloom of its tangled recesses. "f — "Some-
times a tree appears covered with beautiful flowers which do
not belong to it, but to one of the lianas that twine through
its branches, and send down great rope-like stems to the
ground. Sometimes the ground is carpeted with large flowers,
yellow, pink, or white, that have fallen from some invisible
tree tops above, or the air is filled with a delicious perfume,
the source of which one seeks in vain, for the flowers that
cause it are far overhead out of sight, lost in the great over-
shadowing crown of verdure. " § — " When for the first time "
(Mr. Wallace goes on to say) "the traveller wanders in these
primeval forests, he can scarcely fail to experience sensations
of awe, akin to those excited by the trackless ocean or the
Alpine snowfields. There is a vastness, a solemnity, a gloom,
a sense of solitude, and of human insignificance, which for
a time overwhelm him." ** " We often read in books of travels
of the silence and gloom of the Brazilian forests; they are
realities, and the impression deepens on a longer acquaint-
ance." ft

The few sounds of birds and animals which break
the stillness are generally very harsh and unmusical,
and keep up the feeling of inhospitable wildness which
the forest is calculated to inspire, the musical notes of
song birds being rarely or never heard there.

In our consideration of the equatorial forest, as a

* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace. 1878, p. 61.
f Ibid., p. 62.

§ Bett's Naturalist in Nicaragua, quoted by Mr. Wallace, in his
Tropical Nature, pp. 62 — 63.
** Tropical Nature, by A. R. Wallace, p. 67.
ft Ibid., p. 71-

TIERS OF VEGETATION IN TROPICAL FORESTS. 185

forest, we must, however, never forget that it consists
not of one, but of several distinct tiers of vegetation,
rising one above the other. Just as a lofty building
has its different stories, so the forest has its different
gradations; beginning at the top with lofty trees of
gigantic growth, having beneath them a second, and
even a third forest, of smaller, shade-loving trees, of
various sizes, beneath which again are other under-
growths, consisting of ferns, and herbaceous plants of
different kinds, often extending in a matted covert down
to the very ground itself. Mr. Wallace, in his charming
and instructive work upon Tropical Nature, furnishes
us with the following graphic description of one of these
forest landscapes:

" The observer new to the scene is first struck by the
varied, yet symmetrical trunks, which rise up with perfect
straightness, to a great height, without a branch, and which,
being placed at a considerable distance apart, give an im-
pression similar to that produced by the columns of some
enormous building. Overhead, at a height of perhaps a hun-
dred feet, is an almost unbroken canopy of foliage." — "Usu-
ally so dense, that but an indistinct glimmer of the sky is
to be seen." — " There is a weird gloom, and a solemn silence,
which combine to produce a sense of the vast, the primeval,
almost of the infinite. It is a world in which man seems
an intruder." *

Dr. Schweinfurth, the well-known German traveller in
Central Africa, speaks to the same effect, as regards
these giant trees in the forests of the Southern Niam-
Niam country:

" Some of the trees " (he says) " were ten feet in diameter
at the base, and had a bark without a wrinkle; not infre-

* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 30.

1 86 TREE FERNS.

quently they rose up to a height of forty feet, without a
single branch, standing as it were, like the columns of a
thousand years, in the Piazzas of the Eternal City." *

So also the late Mr. Joseph Thomson, describing the
forest growing on the foot hills of the Unambara moun-
tains, in Eastern Africa, opposite Zanzibar, says:

" It was indeed a marvellous forest— every tree a vegetable
giant, rising 70 or 100 feet before branching, and then form-
ing a parachute-shaped crown, through which the rays of the
sun in vain attempted to penetrate. Little less gigantic than
the trees were the creepers— none of your slender convolvuli
or ivies, but massive fellows, as thick as a man's thigh, hang-
ing aloft from tree to tree, or twisting up their stems.
Everything was strange, grand, and colossal." f — Many of the
trees," (he goes on to say) "had crowns of leaves three feet
long by one foot in breadth," §

and the consequent twilight beneath their shade was
so deep, that he informs us : " We actually had to wait
an hour, after the sun rose, before we had sufficient
light to enable us to proceed."**

This dense canopy of foliage, it is desirable to bear
in mind, consists not merely of the leaves of these great
trees themselves, but also of those of the innumerable
lianas which spread themselves, like matted cordage,
all over their tops, just as water plants rise up from
the bottom, and spread themselves over the surface
of a pond, exposed to the air and sunshine. More-
over, all this mass of verdure, by excluding the air
and sunlight, acts as a condenser to the vapours,
continually rising from a soil saturated by the tre-

* The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Schweinfurth, 2nd edit., 1874, Vol.
i, p. 528.

f To the Central African Lakes and Sack, by Joseph Thomson,
Vol. i, p. 52. § Ibid., p. 56. ** Ibid., p. 55.

SHADE-LOVING FOREST GROWTHS. 187

mendous rainfall, characteristic of the equatorial regions
— so that a vast natural stove-house, with an atmo-
sphere precisely similar to that of an orchid house at
home, is perpetually kept up in the umbrageous arcades
thus created beneath.

Here, the numerous shade and moisture-loving
tropical trees of the larger size find their natural
habitat, and form a second forest of medium sized
trees, whose crowns do not touch the lowermost
branches of the trees above. These are, perhaps, from
forty to sixty feet in height, or even more, if circum-
stances permit their growing to a greater height,
beneath the protection of their more gigantic and
sun-loving neighbours — and it is among this class of
trees that many of the treasures of the tropical forest
are numbered — so far, that is, as this vast treasure
house of Nature has as yet been explored and its
products made known to the world.

Beneath this second forest, in the still deeper shadows
below, a third forest is often found, consisting of still
smaller trees, ten or twelve feet high, among, or
beneath which, are numerous dwarf palms, tree ferns,
and gigantic herbaceous plants, — and lastly,
"coming to the surface of the ground itself, we find much
variety. Sometimes it is completely bare, a mass of decaying
vegetation. More frequently it is covered with a dense carpet
of selaginella, and other lycopodiaceae, and these sometimes
give place to a variety of herbaceous plants, sometimes with
pretty but rarely with conspicuous flowers." *

The marvellous beauty and richness of some of this
undergrowth is a thing that must be seen before it
can be realized ; suffice it to say, that many of the

* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 34.

1 88 GALLERY FORESTS.

gems of our stove-houses have been collected here.
The tree ferns, for instance, are often marvels of
exquisite grace and delicate freshness of colouring.
The largest and finest specimens of these beautiful
plants generally, however, occupy small openings among
the trees where their crowns are exposed to the sunlight.
Nothing can exceed their grandeur and beauty. Thus
Mr. Thomson, after recounting the glories of the giant
trees of the Unambara forest, exclaims —

" All these arboreal wonders were forgotten as my eye lighted
upon a lovely group of tree ferns, growing beside a rocky
stream, with straight stems twenty feet high, topped by a
delicate green crown of fronds. This part of the country
proved a very paradise of ferns." *

It is in such places as these, along the banks of
streams flowing through ravines and deep channels
that the wonderful " gallery forests," first brought to
the notice of the world by Dr. Schweinfurth, are to
be found. But we shall leave the learned Doctor to
speak for himself on this subject:

"Here too," (he says) "was unfolded the full glory of what
we shall in future understand as a 'gallery' — these are tracts
of brook vegetation, within deep-cut channels, that form,
as it were, walls to confine the rippling stream, so that all
the vales are permanently adorned with tropical luxuriance." t

In almost all damp tropical climates, the beds of
ravines and stream courses here and there present
scenes of fairy-like loveliness, these places forming a
series of shady grottoes, where delicate ferns and other
shade-loving plants flourish in unsurpassable beauty.
Dr. Schweinfurth was at this time travelling through

* To the Central African Lakes and Back, by Joseph Thomson,
Vol. i., p. 56.

f The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth, Vol. i., pp. 504 — 5.

RAVINES IN THE FOREST. 189

the Niam-Niam country, a part of Central Africa, till
then almost entirely unknown, where these wonderful
arcades, or " galleries, " of the most striking and
beautiful character, were often met with—

"trees with immense stems, surpassing all we had elsewhere
seen," (he tells us) "here stood in masses. At intervals, some
less towering forms rose beneath their shade — and in the
inmost recesses of these woods one would come upon avenues
like the colonnades of an Egyptian temple, veiled in the leafy
shade of the triple roof above. Seen from without, they
appeared impenetrable forests, but within they opened into
aisles and corridors, which were musical with many a murmur-
ing fountain." *

In Ceylon, however, and in most other countries
situated within the equatorial zone, similar examples
of these extraordinary natural galleries are of frequent
occurrence — the interior of this beautiful island being
a succession of mountains and ravines, with precipitous .
sides, at the bottom of each of which a crystal brook
may generally be heard dashing along its rocky bed.

One might go on, almost to infinity, in the hopeless
effort to recount even a tithe of the wonders and
beauties of these forest scenes, which once seen can
never be forgotten; — after long years have passed, the
memory of them never fails to rise up again, from time
to time, in the mind's eye, as among the scenes which
we feel to be most wonderful, and best worth seeing
in the experiences of a lifetime. In the common course
of Nature, much that we think well worth seeing, at
the moment, fades out of recollection entirely, or else
when looked back upon, appears tedious, or common-

* The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth, 2nd Edit.,
1874, Vol. i., p. 506.

I QO FORESTS AND MALARIAL FEVER.

place, such in fact as we should never care to see again.

But one of the glories of a traveller's life is that
these wonderful instances of the boundless wealth and
magnificence of the works of Nature never pall upon
our recollection. They are among the very few things
that seem never to grow old, but always, so long as
life itself may last, form bright pictures, which the
memory loves to dwell upon.

Unfortunately, on account of their inaccessibility
and a vague fear of the deadly nature of the climate,
the equatorial forest scenes are witnessed under their
finest aspects by an infinitesimally small number of
our travelling community, though almost every vegetable
treasure both known and unknown, of the tropical
world, is to be found in them. Now, though it is im-
possible to deny that Europeans travelling in these
regions always incur a certain amount of risk from
malarial fever, etc., yet so long as the country is not
of a low-lying, swampy nature, recent experiences seem
to point to the conclusion that the risk is not always
so great as is generally supposed: for it is worthy of
note that so long as the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition,
in its progress across the African continent, remained in
the forest, they suffered comparatively little from fever,
and it was of very mild types in those few cases that did
occur; but when they reached the grass land, and got
into the open bush country, all the Europeans, almost
without exception, suffered severely. * These facts
rather seem to point to the conclusion that the direct
rays of the vertical sun have, at any rate under certain
conditions, a considerable influence in predisposing to
attacks of fever. It is also probable that the malarial

* Darkest Africa, by H. M. Stanley, 1890, Vol. ii., pp. 31 — 33.

BUTTRESSED TREES. 19 1

germs diffused through the atmosphere, are to a great
extent absorbed by trees; this is, however, a technical
question, which cannot well be considered here — and
we must bring this portion of the present section to a
close, after a brief survey of the most remarkable items
among the vegetable productions of these forests.

As curiosities, the buttressed trees, air roots, bam-
boos, rattans, and other trailing creepers, each deserve
a few words of passing mention. As regards the
first, they are an evident provision of Nature to
anchor the trees more securely in the ground. These
buttressed trees are of all sorts and sizes; besides
those of gigantic size and girth, there are many
species that shoot up to a great height, though the
diameter of the trunks is singularly small ; the buttress
system seems peculiarly well adapted to these cases,
as it furnishes a strong, light, and efficient support,
consisting of projections which resemble in some
measure thin boards, laid edge-ways, as struts,
against the trees. According to Mr. Wallace, who
seems to have given these matters particular attention,
" they rise^ to varied heights on the tree, from five or
six, to twenty or thirty feet, and are sometimes so large
that the spaces between them, if roofed over, would
form huts capable of containing several people." *

These curious buttresses are found to occur in a
good many different varieties of trees, in the tropical
forests and jungles, and do not seem to be peculiar
to any one particular genus. Sometimes they occur of
very large size proportionately, in tall growing trees
of slender girth; and again, they are seen propping
up the huge trunk of some giant of the primeval

* Tropical Nature, by A. R. Wallace, 1878, p. 31.

IQ2 WILD JUNGLE TREES.

forest, whose lofty crown towers high above the sur-
rounding timber, where it seems to stand alone in
its grandeur, without any other tree of a similar species
near it. The height of some of these great trees, and
the consequent distance of the leafy crown above the
observer's head, but above all, the mass of trailing
creepers which spread themselves over it, often render
it difficult to determine what sort of tree it is which
thus excites our wonder and admiration. This will
also probably account, to a certain extent, for the
great difficulty that exists in obtaining information of
a really reliable character about jungle trees in general;
for until the trees are actually cut down, everything
is more or less a matter of guess work, with those
species which are not in common use for building and
other purposes ; and of which perhaps only a few
specimens exist, scattered over a wide extent of country.
Even in India or Ceylon, the natives can afford but
little information about them ; and if questioned on the
subject, reply, "Me not know — He jungle tree!"*
Nor can much more distinct information be obtained
from planters and other white residents. " They are
jungle trees" — that is all they can say about them.

But besides these peculiar buttressed roots, there is
another way in which some of these great trees are
anchored to the ground; for in addition to the ordinary
roots descending into the ground, we often find the
surface, for a considerable distance around the trunk,
covered by what we shall call "surface roots," which
stand out above the surface of the soil like the giant
coils of an assemblage of enormous serpents. Some

* The word "Jungle, " so common in the mouths of Europeans, is.
derived from the Hindu "Jangla, " signifying wild.

SURFACE ROOTS. 193

of these great roots will sometimes protrude to a con-
siderable height — often as high, and sometimes con-
siderably higher, than a man's knee, so that it is no
easy matter to step across them. These interlacing
coils twist about in a most extraordinary manner,
and often thickly cover a considerable surface, corre-
sponding, we have sometimes thought, to a certain
extent, with the spread of the branches overhead. A
fairly good example of such roots is easily acces-
sible to the inspection of visitors, on entering the
Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya, near Kandy,
Ceylon, where a line of splendid specimens of the
Ficus Elastica, or Asiatic caoutchouc-tree, may be
seen exhibiting a large area of these "surface roots, n
covering the ground around their trunks, and without
the view of their curious sinuosities being obstructed,
as it often is in the jungle, by other growths of
various kinds. It is obvious that these matted coils
are another of the wise and curious provisions of
Nature for enabling the trees to resist the terrific
force of tornadoes, to which all tropical regions are
subject,* which would otherwise soon level the largest
trees with the earth; whereas when anchored in this
way they could not possibly go down without uplift-
ing in their fall a vast and ponderous mass of earth
and stones, attached to these gigantic floors of roots,
which thus form a regular pedestal to the parent tree,
which cannot be overturned.

Air roots are another form of anchorage, of even
still greater efficiency, while at the same time they
also form a means of propagating fresh off-sets from

* Ceylon has, however, thus far, been singularly free from those
destructive hurricanes which are so common in the Bay of Bengal.

VOL. I. 13

194 AIR ROOTS.

the parent stem. In the temperate zone, we have
rudimentary examples of both the former processes
(buttresses and surface roots), but so far as we are
aware, we have nothing at all to compare with the
regular air roots of the equatorial forest: before roots
can be made to spring from the branches of trees of
the temperate zone they must in some way be brought
into contact with materials, such as earth, vegetable
refuse, water, etc., which form the food of plants; they
will then, as we know, gradually throw off roots, and
in many instances attach themselves to the soil. But
in the equatorial forest, considerable numbers of trees
form regular root fibres upon the under surface of their
branches; which grow downwards, at first like a single
hair, but, gradually acquiring strength and nourishment
from the air itself, they soon reach the ground, and thus
in a short time form an entirely new stem, which
taking root grows independently of the parent tree,
while at the same time it is anchored to it by
immense branches which ensure their mutual stability,
like the trusses of an iron girder bridge.

We ought perhaps to say that there are two totally
distinct kinds of "air roots" — (i) those that drop from
the branches, as already described; and (2) another
kind that are given off from the stem, or trunk, of the
tree itself, a short distance above the ground ; and which
descend like the others until they are rooted in the
soil. As the trunk grows in height, these roots grow too,
and thus sometimes become so increased in size and
length that the tree appears to be mounted upon a
natural scaffold, supported by struts formed of these
roots. This class of air roots is well seen in many palms
and other trees, especially in the various kinds of

THE GENUS "FICUS." 1 95

* Pandanus" or "screw palms." In our own country
the alder tree (Alnus Glutinosd) growing in places
subject to flood, casts out roots of a somewhat similar
kind ; so do some of our cereal grasses, as for instance
the wheat plant (Triticum Sativutri) of our farms
(especially when the plants have received an injury
to the stem); in such cases wheat stalks will some-
times cast off root fibres above the ground, which
push down so as to anchor the injured stem in the
earth, and thus enable it to grow and perfect its
seeds like its fellows. But these very minor examples
of air roots from the temperate zone hardly deserve
to be classed in the same category with the much
more remarkable achievements of some of the tropical
trees.

Thus, many of the numerous " Ficus " tribes, which are
said to consist " of about one hundred species, varying
in size from small leafed creepers, like ivy, to lofty
trees of gigantic size " * — furnish us with conspicuous
instances of this tendency to cast off air roots, of which
we may cite the well-known banyan tree of India
(Ficus Indica — vel Bengalensis] as a leading example,
and as such we quote it, as its geographical range
extends all over tropical Hindustan. A fine specimen
of this wonderful tree, covering a large surface, with
numerous stems, may be seen in the Royal Botanic
Gardens at Calcutta. Dr. Hooker describes this tree
as 80 feet high, and states that it threw an area 300
feet in diameter into a dark cool shade, fifty years
ago. And nearer home, fair specimens are to be found
in the Esbekiyeh Gardens, Cairo. In Australia, the

* See " The Genus Fzcus" in Smith's Dictionary of Economic
Plants, 1882.

ig6

THE BANYAN TREE.

streets and public gardens of Sydney and other towns
exhibit numerous examples of this class of tree — no-
tably of the Ficus Macrophylla, or Moreton Bay
Fig, and other varieties of the genus indigenous to
Queensland,* which already form large and shady
avenues.

The Banyan tree, a perfect prodigy among the
productions of the vegetable kingdom, is a native of
the East Indies, where it grows to a vast size, branching
to a great height, and throwing out these air roots
from every limb, which gradually root themselves all
round the parent stem, till a regular forest of trunks
is formed, which if not interfered with, in the course
of years form an impenetrable thicket through which
a man cannot force his way, except where vacancies
occur. They form, in fact, a regular fortification,
which if directed by human skill and culture, might
be made to assume any shape that might be desired,
and be so arranged as to be completely impervious
to attacks from without, but we are not a\vare that
military engineers have ever availed themselves of its
assistance in this way ; though there seems no apparent
reason why these growths of the banyan should not
continue to extend, so long as the earth furnishes her
sustenance.

There are many celebrated trees of this kind in

* The Australian varieties greatly resemble the Ficus Elastica of
India, except in the colour of their young foliage, that of the Indian
tree being of a delicate pinkish shade, while the Australian varieties (of
which there are several) are generally brown, or of a somewhat brownish
copper tint. All of these Australian figs, however, throw out air roots
resembling those of" the Indian Banyan (F. Indica] when in luxuriant
growth. At Adelaide, however, we observed that these air roots were
rare — probably because the atmosphere there is too dry and too cold
in winter to suit these trees perfectly.

HISTORIC BANYAN TREE. 197

India, which are regarded by the natives as sacred
memorials of the Divine beneficence. The stump of
the famous "Akshai Bar," or Undecaying Banyan tree,
is still an object of worship at Allahabad, and the
presentation of a single piece of money at the temple
there is supposed to procure as much merit as a
thousand pieces elsewhere. * Also on the island in the
river Nerbudda at Shukltirth, near Bharach (or Broach)
stands a celebrated banyan tree, called the "Kabir
Vat" or the Fig tree of Kabir, which according to
Forbes, is supposed to be the same tree as that
described by 'Nearchus', the admiral of Alexander
the Great (Tempo, about 327 B.C.). f This tree, it is
said, " once covered an area so immense as to shelter
7000 men," and, "though now much reduced in size
by destructive floods, the remainder is still nearly 2000
feet in circumference, and the trunks exceed 3000 in
number. " § A writer who visited this tree in 1819
states that,

" its lofty arches and colonnades, its immense festoons of
roots, the extent of ground it covered, and its enormous
trunks, proclaimed its great antiquity and struck him with
awe, similar to that inspired by a fine gothic cathedral. I
should," he says, "guess it to cover from three to four acres,
and the fresh green of its thick foliage shows that it is still
in the vigour of life. Its branches rise so high that many
miles off it is a conspicuous object, standing out like a hill
on the end of the island."**

The author of these pages himself made a pilgrim-
age to this great wonder of the vegetable creation,

* Murray's Handbook for India and Ceylon, 1892, p. 38.
f Oriental Memories, by Forbes, 1783, Vol. i, p. 26.
§ Encycl. Brit. Vol., iii., p. 348 (gth edit.).
** Transactions of the Bombay Literary Society.

IQ8 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE BANYAN.

in 1893; but he regrets to have to report that a great
deal of it has been destroyed, according to the natives
who live upott the spot, by floods from the Nerbudda;
but we fear also that parts of it have been cut, and
otherwise destroyed by man ; bush fires had also passed
through the underwood beneath it, during the previous
dry season. The surrounding districts are almost en-
tirely one vast cotton field ; which is one of the finest
cotton-producing districts in India.

Another great tree of a similar kind is the " Banyan-
tree of Wairatgarh, " near Wai, a place famed in
ancient Hindu legends, and easily reached, through
enchanting rustic tropical scenery, from Poona. It is
said " to shade an area, three quarters of an acre in
extent," — the space covered being in the shape of a
very symmetrical oval — without anything growing
underneath to impede the view, save the stems from
the parent tree. Lady Falkland, * speaking of this
tree, says,

" The shade was so complete, I could sit in the middle of
the day without any covering on my head. The tree was
of such a size that separate picnic parties might take place
under it, and not interfere with each other. There were
countless avenues, or rather aisles, like those of a church,
the pale grey stems being the columns, which as the sun fell
on them, glistened, in parts, like silver; and here and there
were little recesses, like chapels, where the roots from the
boughs formed themselves into delicate clustering pillars, up
and down which little squirrels were chasing each other, while
large monkeys were jumping from bough to bough." f

The leaves of the banyan, we may here remark,

* Voyages .and Travels, by Lady Falkland, p. 173.
f See Murray's Handbook of the Bombay Residency, 2nd edit., 1881.
p. 196.

AFRICAN BANYAN TREES. 1 99

are very similar to those of an old specimen of the
Ficus Elastica, or Asiatic caoutchouc tree ; they have
the same dark green, glossy appearance, but are some-
what shorter and rounder in the point than those of
the latter; and the foliage which grows thickly when
the tree is in robust health, affords a most gratifying
shade in hot weather. In the following lines from
Paradise Lost, it seems most probable that Milton
must make allusion to a tree of the Banyan species,
when he says:

"So counselled he, and both together went
Into the thickest wood: there soon they chose
The fig tree, not that kind for food renowned,
But such as at this day, to Indians known,
In Malabar, or Deccan, spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The tender twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade,
High over-arched, and echoing walks between ;
There oft the Indian herdsman shunning heat
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds."*

Dr. Livingstone, in his "African Travels," also men-
tions a magnificent banyan tree, which he saw growing
in a village on the River Shire, near its entry into
Lake Nyassa. f And he states that many fine trees
of the same species are found dotted over the country,
and that this tree "has been held sacred in Africa
from the remotest times." § We venture to think,
however, what Dr. Livingstone saw were probably
specimens of the species known as " Kigelia Pinnata"

* Milton's Paradise Lost, Book ix.

f See The Expedition to the Zambesi, by David Livingstone, 1868,
p. 124. § Ibid., p. 1 88.

200

SACRED TREES OF THE EAST.

an Abyssinian variety of Ficus which forms the repre-
sentative of the Banyan tree in Africa; some fair
specimens of it are to be seen in the Esbekiyeh Gardens
at Cairo, where we were informed it was introduced
from Central Africa by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth. This
tree in many respects closely resembles the Indian banyan,
and produces quantities of air roots in the same way ;
but there are certain differences in the leaves and fruit,
which show that it is an entirely distinct variety. Its
immense and curious looking* fruit hangs from its
branches like gigantic cucumbers pendant to the end
of a string.

It is, however, not a little remarkable to find that the
superstition so prevalent in Asia, respecting the supposed
sanctity of the banyan tree, was observed by Dr.
Livingstone to be in existence among the native tribes
in this remote part of Central Africa, which at the time
he visited it was an almost entirely unknown and un-
explored region. The circumstance aifords us another
instance of the fact that extraordinary phenomena of
Nature never pass unnoticed, and never fail to make
a deep impression on the mind of the races of natural
man, to whose imagination they always present them-
selves as special instances of Divine power: as such
they are invariably regarded with feelings of awe and
veneration, and are supposed to be invested with
supernatural powers, as the probable seat of the Divine
presence.

We need not go further to find a notable example
of this sort than the sacred Bo-tree (Ficus Religiosa)
of India and Ceylon, sometimes called the "Peepul,"
or poplar-leafed fig-tree, which is universally supposed
by people professing the Buddhist faith, to be endowed

THE BO-TREE. 201

with peculiar sanctity ; so much so, that at almost every
temple a Bo-tree is found growing" hard by, before
which prayers are daily offered up by the faithful.
About the tree itself, in the equatorial regions at all
events, there is nothing very remarkable in appearance.
To what then shall we attribute its supposed sacred
character? According to the Buddhist records it is
because " Gotama " received Buddhahood while re-
clining under the Bo-tree in Uruwala. But there can,
we think, be little doubt that in this instance we must
seek for the real source of its sacred character in its
kno\vn destructive powers, which appear to the native
mind to be clearly supernatural; and thus the scene
of " Gotama Buddha " (the last of the series of 24
Buddhas) receiving perfection, is fixed as having taken
place beneath the shade of this remarkable tree.

The seeds of the Bo-tree have a peculiar faculty for
germinating in the crevices of ancient walls and buildings ;
there they develop, and the roots inserting themselves
among the masonry, take fast hold, while others run
down the face of the wall and root themselves in
the ground at its base, till the tree, which quickly
attains considerable size, being acted upon by the wind,
gradually loosens the stone work, and so in an incredibly
short space of time, in this region of marvellously
rapid growths, reduces the finest works of human
skill and labour to absolute ruin. An attentive observer
may note illustrations of this kind almost all over India.
The Peepul (Pipal Hindi], otherwise the Bo-tree, does
not cast down " air roots " from its branches, like the
Banyan; but once the seed has germinated, either in
a wall, or in the fork of another tree, its roots will
gradually run down its surface, for any distance — it

2O2

PARRICIDAL TREES.

may be often for many feet — -until they reach the ground
and take root there ; when the parasite tree will, in a
few years, form thick stems, and loosen or overturn
the stone work, if it be a building ; or choke the parent
stem, if it be that of a living" tree. Visitors to most
of the ancient temples and other monuments of Indian
antiquity will meet with numerous instances of this,
and in the old walls of almost any of the ancient
cities of India it may be seen doing the same thing
to the stonework of their fabric. Even so far north
as Delhi, if the tourist visiting this renowned fortress
will take the trouble to go out of the Cashmere gate,
along the ditch, past the breech made in the Water
Bastion hard by, by the British cannon during the
siege of 1857, and turning to the right passes along
the river front beneath the city walls, he will in a
short walk see several instances where these trees
have rooted themselves in the wall, and subsequently
fixed themselves in the ground at its base. Not
far from the Water Bastion too, he will see a most
curious example of a banyan tree which has seeded
itself in the parapet, quite fourteen feet above the
ground; from which numerous air roots have run
down the whole face of the wall, till they have anchored
themselves in a similar way below; and there can be
no doubt that in course of time these trees will breech
the walls as effectually as was ever done by British
cannon, if they are not removed before they have had
time to do so.

This destructive faculty of the Bo-tree, is therefore
regarded by pious Buddhists as a species of sermon
written in stone, preached to man by his Creator.
Nowhere does the instability of human greatness receive

VEGETATION DESTROYING THE WORKS OF MAN. 203

a more impressive illustration than in this rapid ef-
facement of the works of man by the agency of exuber-
ant vegetation, under the influence of moisture and
the rays of a vertical sun. Damp is said to be the
moth of time — while it causes rapid growths, it produces
no less rapid decay. In dry climates, on the contrary,
things practically seem to last for ever, as we find for
instance in Egypt, where grains of wheat, enclosed
in the sarcophagus of a mummy, have germinated
after a sleep of three thousand years; and paintings
and gildings, executed upon plaster work, and upon
coffin cases, appear as fresh after the lapse of thirty
or forty centuries, as if they had been executed but
the year before. We have even seen the marks left
by workmen's trowels upon stucco-work remaining as
if the work had only just been finished. Contrast this
with the action of climate under the influence of damp,
even so far from the equator as Calcutta (latitude
22° 33' 47/xN.), not far from the tropic of Cancer, con-
cerning which Sir James Martin, in his day a high
authority on medical science in the Indian service, and
a careful observer of climatic changes, says—

"A familiar but emphatic illustration of the effect of our
climate may be seen in its influence on the habitations of
Calcutta. Constructed of the finest materials, and of such
solidity that in England they would endure for centuries,
they are here, through the destructive alternations of climate
alone, rendered in a score of years, or less, fit habitations
only for crows; in much less time indeed, they may be seen
reduced to a heap of rubbish, covered with vegetation." *

Time and space oblige us in some measure to abbre-

* The Influence of Tropical Climates in the Production of Disease,
by Surgeon-General Sir James R. Martin, C.B., 2nd edit., p. 57.

204 THE PIPaL TREE OVERTURNING BUILDINGS.

viate the veteran physician's interesting and instructive
account of these phenomena.

" A deserted village " (he goes on to say) " is overflowed
by the forest, like the waves of the sea: in the course of
two wet seasons the traces of man are buried by the exuberant
productions of Nature; all marks of human labour, industry,
and art being obliterated in an incredibly short time. The
Peepul tree (or Bo-tree) is the great enemy of buildings.
'No wonder,' says Colonel Sleeman, ' that superstition should
have consecrated this tree, delicate and beautiful as it is, to
the gods. The palace, the castle, the temple, and the tomb—
all those works which man is most proud to raise, to spread
and perpetuate his name; crumble to dust beneath her with-
ering grasp. She rises triumphant over them all, in her lofty
beauty, bearing high in the air, amidst her light green foliage,
fragments of the wreck she hasvmade, to show the nothing-
ness of man's efforts.' " *

The Buddhists have therefore, as we believe, adopted
the Bo-tree as a type of the vanity and instability of
earthly greatness, which has always been made a pro-
minent doctrine by the teachers of that faith. Thus,
Sir Richard Temple, in alluding to this matter, has
pointed out that —

<: In the more modern of the Buddhist temples, there is a stone
figure, seated, or standing, and sometimes colossal, of Buddha.
The forefinger solemnly points to warn men to look from
mortality to immortality — from the seen things of time, to
the unseen things of Eternity. The hand, holding a pinch
of dust, indicates the insignificance of all human greatness." f

Nowhere, therefore, could the fable of Gotama
Buddha receiving his Buddhahood, have its scene

* The Influence of Tropical Climates in the Production of Disease,
by Sir J. R. Martin, 1861 p. 57.

']' India in 1880, by Sir Richard Temple, late Governor of Bombay,
and Lieut.-Governor of Bengal, 1881, p. 28.

FOLIAGE OF TROPICAL TREES. 205

placed in more fitting surroundings than under this
great oriental representative of the vegetable world—
whose age in comparison to that of man, appears almost
as eternal.

The remarkable size and beauty of the foliage of
many of the tropical trees is a feature which can
hardly fail to attract the notice of every observer.
This is a matter which has only been dealt with in
a cursory way by many writers, who are content
with the bare assertion of the fact, accompanied, it
may be, with one or two examples of prominent
cases. We shall, however, venture to go into this
somewhat more in detail, while calling attention to
certain points which, we think, deserve to be more
generally noticed.

We must, however, premise our remarks, in the first
place, by calling the reader's attention to the fact that
in many cases the foliage of the mature, full-grown
tree, is notably smaller in size than that of the young
plant or seedling; so much so, that the stranger is
sometimes inclined to doubt whether these great trees
are the true progenitors of the younger and more
vigorously growing seedlings, whose large and hand-
some leaves excite the admiration of all beholders.
A capital instance of this is afforded by our old, and
in England now well known friend, the " Ficus
Elastica " or Asiatic Caoutchouc tree (often erroneously
called the "India Rubber tree"), the beauty of whose
foliage has caused it to be largely cultivated by the
London market gardeners, until there are probably
few houses in London which have not at one time
or other been adorned by its splendid, dark green,
glossy leaves. Yet, in the old tree, in its natural

206 GIGANTIC LEAVES.

habitat, these great leaves are replaced by others,
certainly not exceeding one fourth of their size. So
remarkable is this difference, that at first sight it is
not easy to believe that they belong to the same kind
of tree.

Now, why is this? The answer we believe to be
very simple ; and we venture to look upon this as
another of those wise provisions of nature to prevent
the destruction of the aged monarchs of the forests by
storms. It is easy to see, if the great trees were still
covered over their whole extent by these large leaves,
they would be unable to withstand the fury of the
gales, which in the form of cyclones visit at intervals
almost every part of the intertropical regions. Kind
Nature, therefore, takes the veteran of the forests under
her protecting care, and as the cautious seaman does
at sea, she shortens sail, by dwarfing the foliage, and
shortening the shoots, rendering the latter thicker and
more wiry, while each leaf presents a lesser surface
for the wind to act upon; but at the same time the
foliage sets more closely together upon the shortened
shoots, and so increases the umbrageous shelter thrown
upon the ground below.

The gigantic leaves seen in the tropics, of which
the Banana forms a prominent example, are mostly
grown on herbaceous plants, or else upon creepers.
The Palmacese form, however, notable exceptions to
this rule. The largest leaves in the world are pro-
bably those of palm trees; but if this be so, Nature
takes care to limit their wind-catching effects by only
having a few of them growing upon the tree at the
same time. As the old leaves mature, they dry off,
and fall from the tree, leaving a long clean stem en-

COCOA-NUT TREES IN A GALE. 207

tirely clear of anything" that can catch the wind. Then
again these great leaves are borne aloft upon stalks
of enormous strength, but of such construction that
they are capable of bearing a strain of almost any
reasonable intensity.

The stems of palm leaves are therefore very gener-
ally made use of by natives of tropical countries, as
" shouldersticks " for carrying loads, for they are at
once light, smooth, and elastic, and the very thing for
such a purpose; and men may frequently be seen
carrying home a bunch of bananas suspended to each
end of such a carrying stick, each of which may weigh
forty or fifty pounds. Large bunches may, however,
weigh up to seventy pounds, but of course the porter-
age of such heavy loads is only possible for short
distances.

As for the palm tree itself, as the reader is aware,
the foliage is generally confined to a mere crown of
leaves on top of a bare pole, and after night their
lofty heads may be seen uplifted high above the sur-
rounding vegetation, spread forth in the still atmo-
sphere, like a gigantic plume of ostrich feathers. The
cocoa-nut palm (Cocos Nuciferd) may be cited as a
good example of this, and well-grown specimens of
these trees usually rise 60 or 80 feet to the crown ;
the diameter of the stem, which rarely exceeds about
a foot, being about the same size all the way up, except
just after issuing from the ground, where there is
generally a protuberance. It is quite a sight to watch
these beautiful trees in a heavy gale, with their strong
but yielding stems, bending before the fury of the blast,
like a well-made fishing-rod; while the crown, caught
underneath by the gusts, closes up together, almost

208

ARECA PALMS.

like a lady's fan — and thus this apparently fragile tree
is enabled to withstand the deadly effects of very severe
storms; though in cyclones of great intensity much
damage is, of course, sometimes done to trees of every
description, as well as to the most solidly built houses.

Another beautiful example of a very tall, slender
trunk hardly larger than a bamboo, which may be
seen bearing aloft its graceful feathery crown in safety,
even in very heavy gales, is the Areca Palm (Areca
Catechu]. These trees, which are common in the low-
lands of Ceylon, form most picturesque objects when
seen upon the edges of patches of jungle, where their
great height and slender form cannot fail to catch the
eye of the passing traveller. They seem to do best
in somewhat swampy localities, and the nuts yield
several valuable products, among others the " Betel
Nut," which is so much used in conjunction with
Betel leaf for chewing by natives of oriental countries,
and which stains their teeth and saliva like blood.*

There is in fact hardly one of the palm tribe, that
does not possess some special feature, either of beauty
or utility, which would entitle it to a detailed de-
scription, had we time and space to devote to it; but
while we must endeavour to be as brief as possible,
we must find room for a few words respecting the
gigantic size of some palm leaves, those, for instance,
of the " Manicaria Saccifera " of Para are stated to be
" thirty feet long, and four or five feet wide, not pinnate
but entire and very rigid. Some of the pinnate leaves are
much longer, those oftheRapht'a Tadigera zm&Maximiliana

* The Betel leaf used with this nut must not be confounded with
the former, as this leaf is the produce of quite another plant, viz., " Piper
Betel" or the Betel Pepper Vine, a species of liana.

THE TALIPAT PALM. 209

Regina being both sometimes more than fifty feet long. " *
The fan-shaped leaves of others are ten to twelve
feet in diameter; of this last form of leaf, we may
cite that of the " Sabal Umbraculifera" ( Von Martius]
of the West Indies, as a good example. Its magni-
ficent " shade-giving " leaves form one of the grandest
natural fans with which we are acquainted. Quite
equal to it is, however, the Talipat palm of Ceylon
(Corypha Umbraculifera), another splendid specimen of
a fan-leafed palm, whose stem is sometimes 100
feet high while its leaves form semicircles sixteen
feet in diameter, with an area of nearly 200 square
feet each, f

The immense height to which some of the palm stems
rise is another matter which it would be wrong to
pass over in silence, and on this head we may just
remark that Baron Humboldt mentions having meas-
ured one of these great palms in South America,
which had attained a height of 192 feet. §

Another marvellous feature in the tropical forest (that
wonderland, which like the enchanted palace of some
fairy tale, is ever teeming with fresh objects of attrac-
tion and beauty), is undoubtedly that of the great ar-
borescent grasses. Of these the bamboos of course
present the most remarkable examples. Bamboo is a
general name commonly applied to a vast number of
gigantic grasses, known as the Bambusacea, of which
it is stated that there are some 20 genera and 170

* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 41.
f Ceylon, by Sir James Emerson Tennent, Lieut.-Governor of Ceylon,
4th edit., 1860, Vol. i., p. no.
§ Humboldt's Travels.

VOL. I. 14

210 GIANT BAMBOOS.

species * catalogued by botanists. These are of all
sizes, some of them being of great height, while others
are small and reed-like; they are found ascending to
great altitudes on mountain ranges, as for example on
the Himalayas in the neighbourhood of Darjeeling, in
British Sikkim, where we have seen them growing
luxuriantly at a height of at least 8000 to 9000 feet
above sea-level. The large-growing varieties vary from
20 to 100 feet or more in height, f These, however,
are all habitants of the hot regions of the tropical zone,
and the moment we pass out of them the bamboo
becomes dwarfed in size, and generally deteriorated in
appearance.

Some of the finest kinds of bamboos, in fact, are only
found growing over a restricted area of the earth's surface,
though they would probably do well on damp, rich soils
everywhere throughout the torrid zone. Among the large-
growing kinds, the common bamboo (Bambusa Vul-
gerici] is, however, a cosmopolitan species, found through-
out the warmer regions of Asia and America, where
it sometimes "attains the height of 100 feet or more,
with a diameter of one foot at the base ; " and like all
these plants shoots up with such unconceivable rapidity
that it " attains its full height, in a few months." §

In the great Brazilian forests bamboos grow to an
enormous size; and Mr. Walsh states that he saw
" many two feet in circumference, and so tall as to
resemble forest trees ; " ** and he mentions his having
cut one of the larger varieties about the middle, and

* Dictionary of Economic Plants, by John Smith, A.L.S., 1882,
Article "Bamboos."
f Ibid.
§ Ibid.
** Walsh's Notices of the Brazil, 1830, Vol. ii., p. 56.

BAMBOOS AS GRASSES. 211

" found it fifteen yards long, where it was not quite
so thick as his wrist, so that the whole plant must
have been 90 feet, tapering-, and polished the whole
way with exquisite finish. "*

It is probable that in the whole field of tropical
vegetation Nature furnishes us with no more attractive
or picturesque object than a clump or forest of these
g-igantic grasses — because grasses they distinctly are,
and as such we should like the reader to regard
them.

If we examine the flower stem of one of our strong
growing meadow grasses, we shall find that in its
form and structure, it closely resembles that of the
bamboo in all essential respects: the bamboo being
merely as it were a mammoth reproduction of the
other, while both plants mature their stalks in something
like the same time.

The young shoots of the bamboo — which at first, by
the bye, look somewhat like a species of giant
asparagus — are many of them edible, and form a very-
good vegetable, much used by natives of some tropical
countries. These shoots generally first begin to appear
soon after the commencement of the rains, and grow
so rapidly that they attain their full height by the end
of the summer, just like ordinary grass.

Mr. Robert Fortune, formerly botanical collector to
the Horticultural Society of London, and the H.E.LCo.,
for instance, states with regard to the "Mow-chok,"
or great Chinese Bamboo, that "he found a healthy
plant grew two feet, or two and a half feet, in the
twenty-four hours, and most quickly during the night." f

* Walsh's Notices of the Brazil, 1830, Vol. ii., p. 56.

7 Residence Among the Chinese, by Robert Fortune, 1857, p. 190.

212 BAMBOO CLUMPS.

This magnificent bamboo Mr. Fortune considers the
most beautiful of all the bamboos, and says that, " it
grows 60 to 80 feet high, with a long clean stem,"
and that it is considered of great value in the arts. *

Then again we have the " Giant Bamboo " (Den-
dro calamus Giganteus], originally a native, we believe,
of Malacca — which is said sometimes to attain a height
of over a hundred feet, and to be the largest of all
known bamboos ; it is distinguished from most of the
commoner kinds, by the beautiful deep violet-blue
metallic colouring of its stem. Magnificent clumps of
it may be seen in the Royal Botanic Gardens at
Peradeniya, Ceylon, where it was introduced from
Penang in 1856. At Peradeniya it is stated that "the
culms attain a length of nearly i oo feet and a diameter
of nine inches. They appear during the rains of June
and July, and grow at the rate of fully one foot in the
twenty-four hours, thus soon reaching their full height. " f

A clump of these giant bamboos, in these gardens,
of which there are several measuring perhaps some
twenty yards each in diameter, is a sight to be
remembered; the stems (or culms) grow so closely
together, that a terrier dog in some places could not
pass between them; and when the wind blows, in
common with all the great bamboos, a curious crepit-
ating noise is heard, caused by their knocking together,
as these lofty poles sway to and fro in the wind.
Bamboo clumps all grow after much the same fashion,,
and resemble * each other very much in general char-
acter ; some have yellow, some green, and a few, dark

* Residence among the Chinese, by Robert Fortune, 1857, p. 190.
f Handbook to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, by Dr.
Trimen : quoted in Ferguson's Ceylon Directory for 1890, p. 144.

BAMBOOS SEEN AT NIGHT. 213

violet-blue colouring, with a metallic lustre ; the culms
are mostly smooth, highly polished and tapering,
exactly representing the general outline of so many
gigantic but well balanced fly rods; in fact, a well-
selected bamboo docs at once supply a ready-made
fishing rod of the finest quality. * The heads and
stems of all are furnished with long narrow leaves,
very much resembling those of the common lake reed
at home, though perhaps more delicate in tracery — and
bamboos therefore, as we have said, whether in mere
clumps, or in forests, always form a beautiful and
picturesque object in the landscape.

In the distance, by day, they often resemble some
graceful group of weeping willows, planted on the
borders of the streams and rivers; and on the sultriest
day the most delicious shade is to be found beneath
the overarching plumes of these giant arborescent
grasses. So thickly and closely do some kinds grow,
that the sun can never penetrate through their matted
thickets. Unfortunately a few kinds are covered with
the most forbidding thorns: we may mention the names
of the " Bambusa Spinosa " of Eastern Asia, and the
" Bambusa Blumeana " of Java, as good instances of
these latter. But to see bamboos of all kinds at their
best, they should be viewed either just before the
rising, or after the going down of the sun ; we have
at such times been again and again struck by their
wonderful and exquisite beauty ; for so soft and delicate
is their tracery, and so graceful their outlines, that
during the still majesty of the equatorial night, when
the sultry air is at times so perfectly calm that a
feather would float perpendicularly down to the ground,

* As regards this see details given in our Section on " Fishing"

214 BEAUTY OF THE TROPICAL NIGHT.

we have frequently seen large clumps of these giant
grasses, standing aloft, motionless in the brilliant
moonlight, looking exactly like the spectral forms of
some gigantic fern, with overarching fronds, bending
towards the earth — their stems rising out of the im-
penetrable blackness of the shadow cast by them upon
the ground beneath.

Tropical vegetation of all kinds, but especially palms
and bamboos, are always seen to the best advantage
on such occasions ; and probably at no other time does
Nature present so perfect a picture of complete and
dignified repose. During the great heats of the day,
the uprising of heated and rarefied atmosphere from the
earth's surface generally produces a draught of air
that feels more or less refreshing to the jaded senses,
and not unfrequently amounts to a pleasant breeze;
but except during the prevalence of heavy rain-storms,
as soon as the sun goes down, and the heated
ground begins to cool, this grateful draught of air is
apt to die away, and then these perfectly still moments
of which we have spoken, accompany the closing in
of darkness, and the gradual appearance of the brightly
shining stars whose lustrous glory fills the tropical night
with splendour.

There is also generally another short interval of a
similar kind, just before and accompanying the dawn,
which follows the withdrawal of the nocturnal birds,
beasts, and insects, whose sounds at this time become
silent, in anticipation of the general awakening of Nature
which succeeds the rising of the great luminary of
the day. At these times a stillness prevails which
may almost be felt: not a leaf is in motion, and the
quiescence of Nature is complete.

TROPICAL CREEPERS. 215

But unlike the deathlike silence of the snow-clad
regions of the north, or that of the desert, or the
prairie, this sleep of Nature in the torrid zone is al-
ways that of regal splendour, taking its nightly rest
surrounded by all the tokens of pomp and magnificence,
which the possession of boundless wealth and resources
alone can supply.

In taking leave for the present of the subject of
the arborescent grasses, we think it well to remind
the reader that after producing their seed, the stems
of bamboos and of many other kinds of these great
grasses, wither and die, * so that a constant succession
has to be kept up, either by " suckers " springing from
the roots, or by means of seed, more especially in
districts where there is a long spell of dry weather ; but
we shall refer further on more particularly to this matter
in connection with the subject of the Jungle, f

No account of the tropical forest could, however, be
considered at all complete without some short account
being given of the vast multitude of creepers of various
kinds, which literally seem to overspread the equato-
rial forest, as water spreads itself over the surface of
flooded lands. Some of the larger and most vigorous
species, such as the rattans, seem to have almost unlim-
ited powers of extension. Many of these kinds have
epiphytal roots, which attach themselves to trees and

* Dictionary of Economic Plants, by John Smith, A.L.S., 1882, —
article " Bamboos."

f By some writers on botanical subjects it has been denied that
Bamboos can reproduce themselves by suckers arising from the roots
after the death of the parent plant, above ground. It can, however,
we think, be easily shown that this is a very erroneous view, taken
without due consideration of the facts. Like other grasses, though the
tops die down, the roots may throw up fresh shoots, and though this
is not common among bamboos, yet it sometimes occurs.

2 1 6 THE " MATO GROSSO. "

draw sustenance from the air, and thus flow from stem
to stem, and from thicket to thicket, in a way that
renders it almost impossible to trace the course of any
particular specimen, except by cutting down the trees.
Mr. Wallace, however, thinks that in some cases they
may be as much as i ooo feet long ; and if so they can
compete with the giant seaweed of the Southern Ocean
(Macrocystis Pyriferd) for the distinction of being re-
garded as the longest of all vegetable growths. It is
this class of plants that renders travelling through these
forests a work of such labour and difficulty; many
of them being armed with tremendous thorns and
prickles, whilst others are dreaded by the natives for their
acrid juices. The thickets are thus often rendered
actually impenetrable until a passage is cut, or tunnelled,
through the tangled masses of vegetation. An immense
province, in the interior of Brazil, for instance, of which
very little has as yet been explored, has thus been
called the " Mato Grosso," or the Great Thicket, as
these words signify in Portuguese. *

Some idea of the difficulties of forcing a passage
through these dense masses of vegetation may be
formed from the statement of Mr. H. M. Stanley, who
says his rate of progress during his great march
through the forest was often under a quarter of a
mile per hour: and at a meeting of the Royal Geo-
graphical Society, he subsequently explained that the
sum of the journeys made by the expedition under
his command for the relief of Emin Pasha, extended
to upwards of six thousand miles, and occupied 978
days, 500 of which were passed in the forest, through
which they actually travelled 1670 miles, which would

* This territory comprises within its limits 668,655 square miles.

VEGETABLE CORDAGE. 217

give an average progress hardly exceeding 3^ miles
per* day, without making any deductions for halts and
days of rest. *

The lofty trees of the equatorial forest, according to
the same authority, frequently attain two hundred feet in
height, and not only overshadow the earth with their
own thickly interlacing branches and foliage, but also
act as natural pillars, which support in addition a truly
enormous mass of parasitic vegetation ; so that, in many
cases, the foliage of the tree itself bears but a small
proportion to the vast collection of overgrowing creepers
and parasites with which every part of the trunk, limbs,
and crown, are often covered.

These creepers and plants are of all sorts and sizes,
some of them adhering closely to the standard tree,
after the manner of ivy in our own country; whilst
others hang from the branches entirely clear of the
trunks, and form regular natural cordage, varying in
thickness from that of ordinary twine to monstrous
growths, which greatly exceed the largest ship's hawser
in thickness, and represent enormous twisted cables,
as thick as, or thicker than, a man's thigh. A great deal
of this mass of cordage descends from great heights,
and seems to have no foliage upon it, as far as the
eye can reach ; it is only where the creeper has ascended
out of the gloomy depths of the forest into the brilliant
sunshine, which glows with unsurpassed splendour
upon the tree-tops, that it spreads itself forth in a mass
of tangled verdure, burying everything under a sea
of foliage.

These masses of climbing plants are known through-

* See Mr. Stanley's speech at the meeting of the R.G.S. reported
in the Times of May 6, 1890.

2l8 FLOWERING LIANAS.

out the tropics under the general name of " lianas"
but definite information as to their size, length, habits,
etc., are matters concerning which almost nothing is
known beyond the general fact that they are " creepers,"
this name embracing a great variety of plants of differ-
ent sorts and sizes.

Many kinds of these lianas are flowering plants, pro-
ducing a profusion of the most beautiful flowers ; the
scent of some of these is delicious, but in other cases
they have a rank, and exceedingly disagreeable smell;
but fortunately these repulsive varieties appear to be
comparatively few in number; many kinds we believe
to be odourless, or nearly so. The superb masses of
colour, for example, produced by the Bougainvillias,
so frequently seen in Egypt and other parts of the
East, or the Bignonias, which often entirely cover large
trees in the North West provinces of India with a mass
of splendid bloom, have very little scent; but the way
they grow over walls and trees, in gardens and shrub-
beries, affords us a good illustration of the manner in
which their more gigantic and coarse growing com-
panions, the forest lianas, bury the great trees of the
primeval forest beneath their exuberant masses of leaf
and flower. When standing on some eminence over-
looking the jungle, and beholding some wonderful
display of floral beauty, a difficulty therefore often arises
in determining whether the floral display is due to the
tree, or to creepers growing upon it, and we regret to say
that even after a careful examination made with a
good field glass one is often unable to determine the
question to one's own satisfaction — at least that has
been our own experience.

The German traveller Von Martins, whose long

FLOWERS ON THE TREE TOPS. 219

residence in the primeval forests of Brazil makes him
quite an authority in these matters, has given a some-
what detailed description of the habits of these singular
plants, * and the extraordinary way in which these
parasites spread themselves, " like a fluid, " over trees
and other objects, every now and again sending down
" air roots, " and thus gaining fresh streng ch to prolong
their already enormous growths; which like the inter-
lacing cordage of a line-of-battle ship of the olden
day bind the trunks of adjacent trees so securely
together that the most violent storms are unable to
tear them asunder. "Large flowers of remarkably
brilliant colours are also, as we have said, character-
istic of the lianas or climbing plants," but as these
are generally " spread over the very tops of the highest
trees, very often a fallen flower, or a peculiar odour,
is all that betrays the presence of these rare beauties,
to which the botanist often looks up in vain. " f Bril-
liantly coloured flowers, as a rule, we may here
remark, almost invariably seek the brightest sunshine.
Hence it comes that we often hear of superficial ob-
servers jumping to the conclusion, either that there
are no flowers at all in these forests, or complaining
that the floral treasures are seldom to be seen. Occa-
sionally, however, when circumstances admit of a good
bird's-eye view being obtained over the summits of
the tree-tops, the observer becomes suddenly convinced
of his error. The author, for instance, can never
forget the extraordinai y magnificence of the floral

* See, Reise nach Brasilien, by Von Martius, Vol. iii, p. 32, etc.

f Outlines of the Geography of Plants, by F. J. F. Meyen, M.D.,
Professor of Botany at the University of Berlin, p. 164. (Translated
from the German for the Ray Society of London, by Marg. Johnston,
1846).

.220 ORCHIDS.

display which he witnessed on one occasion from the
summit of a rocky eminence, in the neighbourhood
where the works upon the great canal across the
isthmus of Panama have since been carried on ; the
whole country, at that time, seemed to be overspread
with a gorgeous carpet of flowers. The extraordinary
size of some of the flowers that have from time to
time been discovered in these situations is no less
remarkable than their brilliancy. For instance Pro-
fessor Meyen states that —

"the flowers of the Arisiolochia are famous for their extra-
ordinary size ; on the shady banks of the Magdalena, in South
America, Humboldt discovered Aristolochia-Cordifolia, the
flowers of which are four feet in circumference, and are
often worn in play, as caps, by the Indian boys ; and the
A. gigantea of Von Martius has flowers almost a foot long." *

Another class of plants distinguished for the occa-
sional beauty and richness of their flowers are of course
the Orchids, most of which grow on the bark of trees.
" These flowers, " says Humboldt, " sometimes resemble
winged insects, sometimes birds which the perfume of
the honey has allured. The life of a painter" (he
says) " would not be long enough to delineate all the
magnificent Orchidccc which adorn the mountain
valleys of the Peruvian Andes. " f So far as our own
observation, however, has extended, comparatively few
of the orchids have beautiful flowers ; most of their
flowers are small and curious, but inconspicuous ; and
one may travel a long way through the forest without
coming upon anything very striking of this kind.

Most of their flowers, too, are scentless; some few,

* Outlines of the Geography of Plants, by F. J. F. Meyen, M.D.,p. 166.
t Ibid., p. 155.

FOLIAGE PLANTS. 221

however, have a delicious aroma. When this is so,
their fragrance is usually of a very delicate and refined
nature. Among the vegetable treasures, for example,
obtained from plants of orchidaceous growth, we may
mention the now well-known Vanilla (Vanilla Planti-
folia], which produces the deliciously scented and
flavoured vanilla beans, one or two of which, enclosed
in a trunk, among clothes, will in a hot climate in a
short time impart its aroma to every article packed
within it. Now vanilla is a species of fleshy orchid-
aceous creeper, originally a habitant of the forests of
Brazil, where it was discovered by Plumier in 1703.
It is a strictly shade-loving plant, very tough in its
texture, but with nothing very remarkable about it in
appearance. Yet, as we know, this humble and un-
obtrusive looking plant has already cut a considerable
figure in the world, and is now largely cultivated in
many tropical countries, as its value as a commercial
product of the great forest region of the equatorial zone
seems to be constantly more and more appreciated.

But besides the exquisite beauty of many of the
floral treasures of these regions, the tropical forest
possesses still another, if possible yet more delicate and
beautiful form of colouring, which may be regarded
as quite peculiar to itself, in its numerous varieties of
" foliage plants, " as they are now called by horticul-
turists. The singular grace and delicacy of colour-
ing displayed by the leaves of many of these plants
are well known ; and a fairly good idea of the splendid
effects that they are capable of producing, in the way
of artistic decoration, may be obtained by the inspection
of a good stove-house at home, whose still and sultry
atmosphere gives an exact artificial representation of

222 BRILLIANTLY COLOURED TREE SHOOTS.

that of the natural habitats where most of these plants
luxuriate in a state of nature. Some of these, as the
intelligent reader is doubtless aware, are sun-loving
plants. No sun can be too hot, or too bright, for
some of them — the crotons, for instance. * Others are
altogether of a shade-loving nature, and though the
high temperature of the torrid zone is essential to their
existence, yet a short exposure to the rays of a ver-
tical sun would speedily terminate their frail existence,
or at all events would shrivel up and destroy the
matchless grace and beauty of their delicate leaves,
like the breath of a furnace. It is these, and such
like gems, therefore, that flourish in the shady nooks,
and everglades, which exist in abundance beneath the
thick canopy of overarching foliage, concerning which
we have already striven to convey some faint idea to
those readers who have honoured us with their attention.

This canopy, as we have said, is evergreen : through-
out the year it varies but little either in appearance
or density. There is no fall of the leaves in these
regions — properly so speaking, corresponding with that
of our autumn and winter — leaves are always falling,
however; but are also almost always budding. In the
tropical forests, therefore, we lose the autumn tints, so
much and so justly admired at home, but in their
place, as we shall presently show, the dwellers in the
torrid zone are fully compensated for the loss by the
exquisite brilliancy and beauty of colouring displayed
by the young leaves and shoots of many of their trees.

This is a subject which, as we venture to think, is

* Around Colombo, Ceylon, every cottage garden is adorned with
superb specimens of these plants. All the best varieties of Crotons do
well there and form regular trees, almost as large as lilacs at home.

FIELD GLASSES IX THE FOREST. 223

generally overlooked in books, and by writers in their
descriptions of the tropical landscape: perhaps because
in many cases it is mistaken for that of flowers — for
these young growths have all the effects which can
be produced by the finest display of floral magnificence,
their tints including nearly every hue and colour
commonly met with in tropical flowers. The young
leaves and shoots, for instance, will represent the most
brilliant reds, scarlets, claret-colours, purples, browns,
and yellows, of every conceivable shade— as well as
the most perfect and delicate shades of white — so that, at
a distance, they have all the effects of beautiful flowers.
These brilliantly coloured growths, moreover, often
cover the entire surface of groups of gigantic trees,
forming the natural growths of the jungles and primeval
forests of the equatorial zone. You may, with a good
glass, see them almost everywhere; and nothing can
be more beautiful and more striking than the effects
which are often produced by them.

And here, perhaps, we may take the opportunity of
pointing out the capital importance for the observant
traveller, of being possessed of a good glass. This is
a matter which we have not failed to insist upon in
another portion of this work, which treats more parti-
cularly of these subjects, and gives some technical
details respecting them, to which we beg to refer the
reader. Without a good glass, we venture to think
that the explorer of tropical forests is nowhere. The
altitude, and inaccessible position of some of the trees,
is so great and so frequent, that there is very often
no other available means of examining the details
of the distant landscape, or even of individual trees,
except by means of a glass; and with a really good

FOREST VISTAS.

glass, at a distance of one or two miles, all the leading
features ought to be thoroughly discernible.

We are quite aware that a hasty and superficial
observer may object, with some apparent show of
reason, that the dense nature of the jungles, in these
regions, would render the use of a glass, according to
his idea, a matter of impossibility — and we do not deny
that in many places this is so. But in all great forests
we venture to point out there are lofty ridges, rocky
crests, windfalls, and barren spots, where occasional gaps
occur in the thicket ; as well as numerous streams and
rivers and paths, wherever there are inhabitants, travers-
ing the primeval forest in every direction. Even the great
forests of the Upper Congo, brought into notice by
Mr. Stanley, form no exception to this rule. And from
these positions distant views of the forest, if they are
carefully looked for, may frequently be obtained,
especially where the country is of a broken nature, or
where there are ravines or mountains. The views up
and down ravines, or along the course of rivers, streams,
and dry watercourses, are often of the most striking
character imaginable, opening up vistas of extraordinary
beauty from whence all the hidden glories of the great
wilderness of verdure may frequently be inspected,
and valuable details of a technical nature taken note
of, by a careful and intelligent observer, in a way that
will often be surprising, even to himself. Nothing can
be done, comparatively speaking, from such places
without the aid of a good glass, but by its assistance
numerous details entirely hidden to the naked eye
become at once perfectly apparent.

As regards the means of communication through
these great forests, which are generally represented as

FOREST WARFARE. 225

being trackless, it may perhaps be desirable to
mention, that pretty well all known forests are inhab-
ited by scattered bands of natives, who inhabit their
inmost recesses, and who can, if so disposed, almost
always conduct strangers through any part of them, by
means of local paths used by the jungle people, and
known only to them. *

The celebrated Red Indian warrior tribes, who
used to inhabit the immense forests of North America,
furnish a well-known and admirable instance in point —
but nowhere perhaps can wre, at the present time, find
people possessing larger or more varied experience in
such matters, than among British officers in the Indian
service. There, there is a regular, organized forest
service, for the inspection and conservancy of the great
tropical forests, that cover large areas in our Indian
empire — and we believe that these remarks convey in
brief, what has been the general practical result of their
experience.

This is a matter which, from a military point of
view, has frequently assumed an aspect of extreme
importance in the history of British colonization;
for the difficulty of effectually dealing with these
wild tribes has frequently proved to be very great. This
fact has been clearly pointed out, in a recent work,
by a well-known American writer, in connection
with the settlement of his own country, for he
says—

" Much has been written and sung of the advantages pos-
sessed by the mountaineer, when striving for his home against
invaders from the plains; but these advantages are as nothing

* See, Hints on Mountain and Jungle Warfare, by Lieut.-Colonel
J. (_. Gawler, 1873.

VOL. I. 15

226

TROPICAL FRUITS.

when weighed with those which make the warlike dweller in
forests unconquerable, by men who have not his training.
A hardy soldier accustomed only to war in the open, will
become a good cragsman in fewer weeks than it will take
him years to learn to be so much as a fair woodsman, for
it is beyond all comparison more difficult to attain proficiency
in woodcraft, than in mountaineering." *

Before closing this section, we think it desirable to
add a few words upon the subject of tropical fruits,
and upon one or two of the other rarer and more valu-
able treasures of the great forest region. The number
of different kinds of fruit peculiar to the tropics is,
however, very large, and it would of course be impos-
sible to attempt anything like a detailed statement
respecting them.

Moreover, the flavour of many of these fruits
is not much esteemed by European palates ; it is
alleged that they are mostly too sweet and luscious
and too highly scented, or else have a rough and un-
pleasantly tart or astringent taste. There can be no
doubt that there is a good deal of truth in these
assertions, and that in general popularity and exquisite
flavour, they can hardly be said to come up to the
best fruits of the temperate zones ; thus in the tropics,
they have probably no fruit to match a really first-rate
peach, f nor any that will bear comparison with the
strawberry, or perhaps with a first-rate pear, nor yet
with the orange. Both the peach and the orange,
however, have been grown in certain tropical stations,
and the latter will often bear remarkably well, yet the

* The Winning of the West, by Theodore Roosevelt, 1889, Vol. i.,
P- 79-

t The peach is indigenous to Persia, and is strictly speaking a habitant
of the desert zone.

PINEAPPLES. 227

flavour of the tropical grown orange cannot compare
with that of the best oranges grown at places within
the warmer regions of the temperate zone, as for instance
at St. Michael's, or in Morocco, Tripoli, and other
places in Northern Africa, and in some parts of Asia
Minor; grown in hot districts, such as Ceylon, for
instance, the orange becomes evergreen, the fruit is
green even when perfectly ripe, but its excellence is
gone, and it is an acrid and degenerate member of a
noble family of fruits.

On the other hand, there are many undoubtedly
delicious fruits of tropical origin. Of these we may
take the pineapple (Ananas Sativd] as a leading
example. Now this splendid fruit is strictly a habitant
of the very hottest and dampest regions of the equa-
torial zone. There only, beneath the incandescent rays
of a vertical sun, will it flourish in its best and highest
flavoured form — though it will, as we know, grow in
drier localities, where a less high and equable tem-
perature is found; but if so it proves of indifferent
flavour, and it is to this that we attribute the low estimate
which the pineapple appears to possess in the opinion
of London gourmands. With the exception of a
few stove-house pines, grown at great expense, very
little good fruit of this kind ever appear in the London
market. To know what the pineapple is, when grown
in perfection, one should taste one grown in the hot
regions of Brazil, where certainly the finest pines we have
ever eaten were produced. Very few good pineapples
are grown in Ceylon and other parts of our tropical
possessions in the East, because the varieties there cul-
tivated are many of them of an inferior and even
worthless description. A radical change in these matters

228 OVERRIPE TROPICAL FRUIT.

would be most desirable. The fault is with the grower.

As good typical examples of tropical fruits, of a soft
and luscious character, the custard apple, the papaw,
the banana, and the mangosteen, may be selected. It
is this class of fruits which are accused of quickly
cloying upon the palate, and after a few days' trial
becoming positively distasteful to many people. They
are further objected to by some persons as being very
unwholesome. All that we shall venture to say in
their defence is that these supposed failings greatly
depend on whether or not they are eaten exactly at
the proper moment: especially the three first named
examples.

None of this class of fruits keep well : when ripe they
require to be eaten at once, or they are completely
spoiled. If they are the least overripe, a species of
vinous fermentation immediately sets up in them, which
quickly destroys their delicate flavour, and renders them,
to most European palates, positively nasty; while at
the same time, there can be no doubt, they become
in many cases exceedingly unwholesome — in that of
the banana especially.

This last fruit is, as we know, a regular article
of food with vast numbers of natives inhabiting tropical
countries — and it is possible to live upon it exclusively,
for long periods of time, without experiencing any evil
effects. What would have become of Mr. Stanley's
expedition, for instance, without the banana?

Really good bananas, in first-rate condition, are, we
venture to think, as delicious and harmless a fruit as
it is possible to find; which can be partaken of as
largely, and eaten as frequently, as almost any fruit
we could name, subject to the conditions indicated

THE BANANA. 22Q

above. First-rate bananas, however, are strictly a
production of the torrid zones; and if grown in semi-
tropical countries, and cut in an unripe green state
(for carriage to the London market for instance), can-
not be expected to prove lair examples of the banana
such as are grown tc perfection at places like Colombo ,
Batavia, Madras, or other warm and equable tropical
stations. At Bombay a large variety of the banana,
with a deep-red rind, is to be met with, worth taking
note of as a special variety of this fruit ; but it cannot,
we think, bear comparison as to excellence with the
smaller, yellow varieties, grown within the equatorial
zone : the smaller fruits (short and thick in shape) being,
as far as our experience goes, in general superior to
those of a larger, and usually coarser, growth.

At the same time, long continued efforts at acclimati-
zation have been so far successful, that the banana
has been transplanted from its natural habitat, the
equatorial zone, to colder regions, far beyond even the
limits of the tropics. Bananas, for instance, are found
growing all over che North Western provinces in
India; and we have even seen them growing in cold
elevated stations like Darjeeling, in Sikkim, and far to
the north in places like Peshawar, on the northern
frontier of the Punjab. It is sufficient, however, to note
the fact of their existing there — their fruit of course,
even in the North Western provinces, being to our
mind so inferior as to be almost uneatable.

The great leaves of the banana tribe are, as most
people are now aware, among the most wonderful and
beautiful examples of tropical foliage. Like the bamboo,
the banana is perhaps seen at its best by twilight,
and standing aloft, motionless in the still glory of the

230 THE BREAD FRUIT TREE.

tropical night, on such occasions these great leaves
have always struck us as objects full of grandeur and
sublimity, and we specially commend the study of
fine groups of these beautiful plants to the notice of
future travellers, and artists.

The most superb leaf of this kind is probably that
of the Musa Ensete, or Wild Abyssinian Banana, now-
a-days a common ornament of our plant houses. * The
natural habitat of this plant is in the open glades of
the jungles of the Abyssinian highlands, where single
leaves have been found to measure thirteen or fourteen
feet in length, by three in breadth ; their singular
beauty, and freshness of colouring, set off by a central
rib of brilliant red, will doubtless be familiar to hor-
ticulturists; its fruit, however, is hardly edible; it is
therefore not one of the species which are cultivated
for food, such as the well-known Musa Sapientum, or
the larger or " plantain " species, the M. Paradisiaca.

Another most striking example of a fruit tree whose
beautiful leaves cannot fail to attract the notice of
travellers in equatorial stations, wherever it is grown,
is that of the curious, and as yet comparatively little
known Bread Fruit tree (Artocarpus Incisa], the finely cut,
and highly ornamental foliage of which instantly catches
the eye, and forms a splendid contrast to the foliage of
groups of other trees seen growing in the surrounding
landscape. This great tree is an importation from the South
Sea Islands, where it was first described, we believe, by
the great circumnavigator Captain Cook, a little more
than a century ago. Its fruit, which is about the size
of a child's head, when properly cooked makes a very

* This species is now so far acclimatized as to do well in the open
air during summer in Great Britain and throughout Central Europe.

THE COLDNESS OF FRESHLY GATHERED FRUIT. 231

nice dish with a delicate flavour, not unlike that of
rather underbaked fresh bread, much liked by many
people. There are several wild varieties of this fruit,
which form noble, and large growing timber, in some
tropical forests, as for instance in Ceylon, all of them
distinguished by their ornamental foliage. The Jack
Fruit tree (A . Intcgrifolid) is a good example of these
wild kinds; but its fruit is not edible by Europeans.
It is used, however, by Natives as an ingredient in
their curries. The Mango (Mangifera Indica) is another
grand and beautiful tree, growing to a very large
size, met with in these regions, whose fruit is highly
esteemed for the particular richness of its aroma and
flavour, and of which there are many varieties. Its
splendid dark evergreen crown of foliage forms so
dense a canopy that the deep cool shade cast around
its trunk is most grateful to the wayfarer in the hot
season. These trees are grown in millions all over
Hindustan and during their flowering season the whole
air is sometimes deliciously scented with the fragrance
of their blooms. But we might go on almost ad
infinitum, to record, did time and space permit, instance
after instance of remarkable examples of the vegetable
wealth of these favoured regions ; we must, however,
limit ourselves, before taking leave of this subject, to
the consideration of but one further point, which we
think ought by no means to be passed over unnoticed.
We allude to the delicious freshness, and intense
coldness, which visitors to the tropics can hardly fail
to have remarked, is characteristic of freshly gathered
fruit.

Were fruits growing in hot countries to become
heated to the same temperature as that of the atmosphere,

232 PLANTS ADJUSTING THEIR OWN TEMPERATURES.

it is evident that one of their most agreeable qualities
would be gone. Yet, as we know, many of these fruits
only attain their full perfection, when exposed throughout
the day to the scorching rays of a vertical sun. To
what therefore are we to attribute this curious and
beneficent peculiarity? — A Water Melon (Cucurbita
Citrullus, or Red-fleshed water melon) for instance,
growing in a river bed, upon an expanse of sand,
from which the waters have retired, if eaten immediately
after being severed from the plant, will appear almost
as cold as if iced — and yet the sand upon which it
rested, may have become so superheated by the sun,
that it will burn the naked hand if it comes in con-
tact with it. It will be found that this characteristic
in various degrees, is more or less common to every
species of fruit.

This is surely a most remarkable and surprising
fact, by which we have all, from time to time, profited;
but while experiencing a grateful sense of its pleasant
refreshment, it has very likely occurred to but few of
us to ask ourselves, Why is it so? — yet few natural
phenomena are more curious, or better deserving of
our attention, than this marvellous power of plants of
maintaining and adjusting their own temperatures.

In cold climates, for example, it has been found
that the temperature of vegetables is usually somewhat
higher than that of the atmosphere ; but in hot climates
it is maintained at a point considerably below it; and
although the causes of this singular faculty appear to
be as yet somewhat imperfectly understood, it seems
probable that the coolness of fruits is simply the
result of evaporation, consequent upon the power
possessed by the roots of plants, of constantly attracting

COOL FRUITS GROWING ON HOT SAND. 233

fresh supplies of moisture from the soil. That such
is the case, is made evident by the fact that fruit
severed from the stalk quickly loses a great deal of
its delicious coolness, consequent upon the cutting off
of this, its source of supply. Sir James Emerson
Tennent, some time Lieutenant-Governor of Ceylon,
in his fine work upon this island, has been one of the
few who has called attention to this subject; and he
is careful to point out that : " even an interval of a
few minutes after it has been pulled, is sufficient to
destroy the charm ; for once severed from the stem,
it rapidly acquires the hot temperature of the surround-
ing air."*

It is therefore (though we regard this statement as
to a certain extent, overdrawn) necessary that fruit
should be eaten the moment it has been gathered, in
order to enjoy to perfection the full benefit of its icy
coldness. "Under a blazing sun," the same authority
justly remarks, " no more exquisite physical enjoyment
can be imagined, than the chill and fragrant flesh of
the pineapple, or the abundant juice of the mango,
which when freshly pulled, feels as cool as iced
water, "f

The extent to which evaporation can reduce the
temperature of vegetables below that of the air, is
well illustrated by some experiments made by Dr.
Hooker in the valley of .the Ganges; who found that
the fresh juice of the Mudar (Calotropis] was only 72°
F., while the damp sand, on the bed of the river,
where it grew, was from 94° to 104° F. § Dry sand

* Ceylon, by Sir James Emerson Tennent, K.C.S., 1859, Vol. i,
p. 120.

f Jbid., p. 120.
§ Ibid., p. 122.

234 CACAO TREES, SAGO PALMS, ETC.

would, however, probably show a very much higher
temperature. Yet cool fruits will grow on what is
practically dry and super-heated sand and do so in the
desert zone.

On the other hand, the increased temperatures main-
tained by plants above that of the atmosphere, during
the bitter chill of a winter's night, in cold climates,
seems to be due to their power of closing their pores
at night, under the influence of great cold: thus
mechanically arresting the process of evaporation, by
which their juices would be cooled. All this, however,
opens up a very large and very wonderful branch of
enquiry, into which it would be impossible for us to
enter, further than to remark that it seems to be
a species of counterpart to the faculty possessed by
animals, of maintaining the temperature of their bodies
at their normal point, or nearly so, under the most
extreme variations of climate. This in the case of the
human subject is ascertained to be slightly over 98^°
Fahr., and it is impossible for it to vary more than two
or three degrees either way for more than a very brief
period of time without serious disturbance of the general
health, and danger, especially in the case of a lowered
temperature, even to life itself. Excessive temper"
atures are, as we know, kept down, and reduced, by
increased transpiration, just as in the case of fruits,
which we have been here considering; so again, a
diminished action of the skin is one of the effects of
cold upon the human frame, exactly as it is in the
case of trees and plants.

The more we examine this subject, in fact, the more
we shall find how closely many of the most important
functions of plants and animals are allied to each other.

CINCHONA TREES. 235

In this brief sketch of a great subject, there are oj
necessity a vast number of important products of the
equatorial zone, which we have been obliged to pass
over unnoticed. Some of these are valuable as sup-
plying various kinds of nutritious foods. In this cate-
gory, we need only enumerate the beautiful cacao tree
(Theobroma Cacao] from which cocoa, and its various
preparations, such as chocolate, are obtained.

Then there are the sago palms, of which there are
several species yielding this useful commodity. Also
the different kinds of cassava, which produce tapioca :
and arrowroot, prepared from the root of the Ma-
ranta Arundinacea, and we believe, from other var-
ieties of this species of plants; also in Queensland, it is
largely produced from the Canna Edulis.

There are, moreover, quite a long list of trees and
plants yielding various important commercial products
of the torrid zone : as producers of many kinds of
timber and cabinet woods; valuable oils, gums, and
spices ; tanning barks, dye stuffs, etc., etc. — and last
but not least, medicinal plants and drugs. We feel
that this section would be chargeable with a grave
omission, if we were to close it without a notice of a
single example of the latter, which out of the medi-
cinal treasures of these great forests, has conferred
priceless benefits upon humanity: we refer to the
well-known medicine quinine, an alkaloid extracted, as
we are all aware, from the bark of the Cinchona
tree; according to Bentham and Hooker, thirty-six
species of this tree have been discovered, but not
more than a dozen of them have been utilized. * All

* Encycl. Brit., Vol. v, p. 781.

236 THE PERUVIAN CINCHONA FORESTS.

are natives of the forests covering the mountainous
regions of South America, where their geographical
range extends from Lat. 10° N. to Lat. 22° 30' S.,
and where they are generally found growing on the
eastern slopes of the Cordilleras in the province or
region known among the Spanish-speaking people as
"La Montana, " at an elevation of from 5000 to 8000
feet above sea-level. * It does not do well in the
lowlands.

The officinal barks of the British Pharmacopeia are,
however, only three in number, which, not to be too
technical, we shall describe as "pale," "yellow," and
" red" barks, f The most valuable of these is the
yellow bark of the Cinchona Calisaya, a lovely tree,
which grows to the height of some sixty feet, and is
said occasionally to obtain a diameter of five feet. §
It is covered with rich, dark green, shining leaves,
with crimson veins, and produces bunches of white
flowers, emitting a delicious aromatic fragrance, in
some respects slightly recalling the smell of a freshly
made infusion of the bark.

Mr. Clements Markham, who superintended the col-
lection of cinchona plants and seeds in South America,
and their introduction into India in 1860, considers
this valuable tree " by far the most beautiful of these
forests " ** — and he gives a most interesting account of
the wasteful way in which the bark was then collected by
the native " cascarilleros, " from the heart of the virgin

* Encycl. Brit., Vol. v, p. 781.

t British Pharmacopeia, p. 1 8, Article " Cinchona."

§ Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Central
and South America, edited by H. W. Bates, p. 332.

** Travels in Peril and India, while superintending the Collection
of Cinchona plants, etc., by Clements R. Markham, 1862, p. 270.

CINCHONA PLANTATIONS IN INDIA. 237

forests, where the wood-knife had to be used to clear
the path, at every step. He goes on to recount the
difficulties that were thrown in his way by the oppo-
sition of the Peruvian authorities; who, regardless of
everything save their own petty interests, were desirous
of preserving the monopoly of this valuable trade ;
while at the same time no attempts whatever were
made to prevent the destruction of these forests, whose
extinction had become merely a question of time.
The letter of the Alcalde, ordering Mr. Markham's
arrest, and the destruction of his collections, is given
in extcnso in his book, in the original Spanish, to-
gether with an English translation, and will probably
stand forth to all time as a monument of human folly,
rapacity, and narrow-mindedness. We wish we had
space to reproduce it here, but we must hasten to
draw our remarks on this subject to a close, after
adding our humble meed of praise to the young
French chemists to whom (in 1820) we owe the dis-
covery of quinine, which has ever since proved of such
enormous importance in the treatment of malarial fever
and other forms of disease. It would be impossible
to calculate with any approach to accuracy, the number
of lives that have already been saved by it — but the
figure must be something enormous : and it is not too
much to say that the modern exploration and opening up
of Africa could not, in all probability, have been
effected, or even attempted at all, without it; it is
also very questionable whether the British Empire in
India could have been maintained, extended, or brought
to its present flourishing condition, without quinine:
that it could not have been done without enormous
losses and suffering, is practically certain.

238 QUININE.

We are therefore happy to be able to feel that
owing to the exertions of Mr. Markham, and others,
the extinction of the Cinchona forests is now placed
beyond the reach of practical possibility, and that every
year the culture of Cinchona is extending in India,
and elsewhere. In many parts of India, for instance,
numerous flourishing plantations already exist — trees
in the Neilgherry Hills having already attained a
height of from twenty to thirty feet.* While in Ceylon,
where large quantities of Cinchona trees have been
planted upon the highlands of the interior, we have
been given to understand that the production of bark
is now so large, and the price of quinine so' much
reduced, that its cultivation is no longer remunerative.
This we believe is partly due to the fact that the
Ceylon cinchona does not contain so large a percent-
age of quinine as the Indian trees. At any rate the
cultivation of this beautiful tree, as we regretted to
observe during our recent visit to that island, is now
comparatively neglected, though it grows so freely
that we have frequently noticed the seedling trees
propagating themselves, wild, upon portions of disused
or uncultivated land.

The medical virtues of Cinchona, formerly known
as "Jesuit's bark," have been known from an early
period in American history, but the first authentic
instance of its medicinal use by Europeans dates from
1638. It was, however, not until 1820 that its valuable
alkaloid " Sulphate of Quinine" was discovered by
two young French chemists, Pierre Joseph Pelletier
and Joseph Bienaime Caventou, in the course of some
researches they were making into the subject of the

* Encyclop. Brit. Vol. v, pp. 781 — 2.

QUININE. 239

vegetable alkaloids. It may be that they did not at
first realize the priceless nature of the boon that they
were about to confer upon suffering humanity, but
however that may be, we feel it our duty to recall
to public recollection a circumstance which the world
would be ungrateful ever to forget, namely that these
young Frenchmen at once placed their discovery at
the service of the public, without any restrictions,*
instead of keeping it secret, so as to turn it to their
own personal advantage, as so many have done when
they have made valuable discoveries.

This noble conduct is therefore deserving of more
than a mere passing mention, as we fear little was
ever done to mark the public appreciation due to
their services, as it was not till 1837 tnat a paltry
sum of 10,000 francs (,£400) wras awarded to them, and
ordered seventeen years afterwards to be divided be-
tween them.f And so far as wre have been able to
discover — that was all. We can therefore readily
conceive the cynical man of the world exclaiming as
he reads these lines — "That shows what fools they
were not to keep the thing secret and make a fortune
out of it." Yet public apathy, for the last seventy
years, goes far in this case to justify these mercenary
sentiments. For was not the gift to humanity above
all price?

How many of the rising generation, for instance,
have ever heard of Pelletier or Caventou ? How many
of the thousands whose lives have been saved by
quinine have felt gratitude to their memory? — Had

* See Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains, par G. Vapereau,
4th edit., 1870 (Article " Caventou ").

f Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX Szecle, par Pierre Lar-
rousse, Paris, 1874, Vol. xiii, p. 528.

240 IMMORTAL HONOUR DUE TO ITS DISCOVERERS.

these men been great warriors, and had each of them
slain his tens of thousands — everybody would have
heard of them. It would then have appeared ignorant
not to know such illustrious names. But as each has
merely saved his tens of thousands of human lives —
the world has forgotten them! and few, very few,
are aware that such humble individuals have ever ex-
isted. Their names, we might almost say, have passed
with their spirits, to that land where all things are
forgotten. On the other hand many a statue has been
raised to commemorate the supposed virtues of men
whose names deserved far less than theirs to live for
ever in the grateful remembrance, not merely of every
Frenchman, but of mankind in general. *

* We have made inquiries into this matter, and have been informed
that there is a bust of Pelletier in existence in Paris, but we understand
that unfortunately there is no memorial of Caventou.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GREAT BUSH REGION, OR JUNGLE COUNTRY.

Its Position and Extent. Gradual Change from Damp to Dry Cli-
mate. Disappearance of Evergreen Forest. Appearance of Deci-
duous Trees. High Solar Day Temperatures. Equatorial Climates
Contrasted with Those of the Bush Region. The Hot Season not the
Unhealthy Season. The Rains as a Cause of Sickness. Jungle Fever.
Bursting of the Monsoon. Wondrous Changes Produced by the Rains.
Tropical Harvests. The Cool Season. The Hot Season. Sun-Dried
Earth. The Tropical Night. The Tropical Sun. Phenomenal Tem-
peratures Mostly Occur Outside the Tropics. Tropical Clothing. Dan-
ger of Incautious Exposure to the Sun. Immunity of Persons in Active
Exercise. Heat Apoplexy. Alcohol and Sun-Stroke. General Immunity
of Sportsmen during Indian Hot Summer. And of European Troops
on the March during the Indian Mutiny. Disease and Stationary
Camps. Divisions of the Bush Country. The Heavy Forests. The
Indian Teak Tree. Fall of the Leaf Caused by Heat, instead of Cold.
The Sal Forest. Central American Mahogany Forests. Ruins and
Forest Growths. The Trade Winds. Effect of Mountain Ranges on
Climate. The Jungle or Dwarf Forest. Grass Jungles. A Great In-
dian Grass Tangle. Jungle Belt at Foothills of Mountains. The Indian
"Terai." Its Deadly Climate. "El Tablazo" of Peru. Causes of
Malaria. Jungles Near Mountains. Malaria Germs and Water. The
Arborescent Grasses. Bamboos. " Elephant Grass." Scented Grasses.
Central African Grass Jungles. Egyptian Papyrus Reed. Indian Sola
Reed. Pith Helmets. Sola Shikar Hats. The Saccharineae. Sugar
Plantations. Rattans and Other Thorny Creepers. Tropical Grasses
and Those of the Temperate Zone Contrasted. The Park-Like Region
of the Bush Country. General Characteristics of the Dwarf Bush.
Grasses of the Bushy Plains in the Dry Season. The Thorny Bush.
Thorns and Drought. Acacia Gums. Frosted Gums and Enchanted
Gardens. Arab Genii. Grass Fires. Their Effect on Tree Life.
Acacia Foliage and Bark. Tanning Barks. Scented Acacia Blooms.
Acacia Timber Trees. Overpowering Fragrance of Mimosa Blooms.
The Sleep of Plants. Linnaeus on the Sleep of Plants. Sensitive
Plants. The Sleep of Plants may be Artificially Produced. Baobab
Trees. Their Immense Antiquity. Medicinal Virtues of the Baobab.
The Baobab as an Exotic. Great Tamarind Trees. Pilgrims Resting
Beneath an Aged Tree. The Scriptures on a Great Tree. Great
Trees on the Indian Plains. The Red Cotton Tree. The Indian
Peepul Tree. The Peepul as a Parricide and Destroyer of Buildings.

241

VOL. I. 1 6

242 THE GREAT BUSH REGION.

The Waterless Districts of the Bush Region. The Kalahari Desert.
Stock Farms on Dry Plains. Succulent Qualities of the Bush. Oxen
and Thirst. Tree Vegetation Indicative of Water. Instances of Deeply
Penetrating Roots. Desert Pools Discovered by the Trails of Game.
Pasture Grasses in Waterless Districts. Their Nutritious Quality.
Australian Experiences. Cattle as Improvers of the Soil. Fat Game
in Waterless Districts. Animals which do not Require Water if
Herbage is Succulent. Water-loving Animals. Herds of Game Driven
by Thirst. Singing-Birds and Water. Flights of Birds towards Water.
Gordon Cuniming's Expedition Saved by Watching Them. Importance
to Travellers of Observing Habits of Birds, etc. Grasses Indicating
Absence of Water. Great Herds of Game and Scanty Vegetation.
Protective Colourings of Animals. Motionless Elephants. The Striped
Form of Protective Colourings. Sand Colourings. Albinism or Snow
Colourings. The Effects of the Colourings of Landscapes on Human
Inhabitants. Man's Attachment to the Land of His Birth. The Great
African Antelopes. Their Peculiarities of Build. Giraffes. Their
Resemblance to Ancient Trees. Antelopes and Deer. Immense Anti-
quity of some African Mammalia. Causes of the Extinction of Races.
The Mammoth and the Mastodon. "Geological Time." . The Fossil
Man. Vast Numbers of Extinct Forms of Life. The Huttonian
Theory. Antiquity of Plant Life. Of Insects, etc. Slowness of Changes
in Vegetation.

WE next come to consider the second of the
terrestrial zones, into which Nature seems to
have divided the earth, which, for reasons we shall
proceed to point out, we have designated " The Great
Bush Country," or in other words, " The Jungle Region/
It comprises two belts: one on each side of the equator,
located on the northern and southern boundaries of
the equatorial zone; which extend from the i5th to
the 25th parallels, of north and south latitude, respect-
ively. Each of these regions will therefore represent
a section of the earth's surface, 600 geographical miles
in width.

The Great Bush Country, as its name denotes, is so
called because its prevailing feature is that of a dwarf
description of forest, consisting in great part of deci-
duous trees, which take the place of the heavy equa-

A REGION OF DECIDUOUS TREES. 243

torial evergreen tree growth, near the point where
the cessation of the double rainy seasons occurs.

The reader will doubtless remember that in our
first, or Equatorial Zone, the climate at the equator
consists practically of but a single season, where high
moist temperatures combined with rains prevail more
or less throughout the year: while some five or six
degrees to the north and south of it, these continual
rains gradually become modified into two seasons of
regular rains, with two intermediate ones of dry weather,
but the same moist atmosphere still continuously pre-
vails. We have not, however, thought it desirable, on
this account, to sub-divide our " Great Equatorial
Forest Zone " into two distinct divisions, corresponding
with these differences of climate, for several reasons:
but principally because the changes in the vegetation
do not seem to be so sufficiently marked as to render
such a course desirable; and next because of the
difficulty of fixing a boundary line where the perpetual
rains begin to intermit.

The Great Bush Region, however, we shall venture
to define as a region marked by the cessation of the
evergreen forest as the leading type of vegetation;
and as the approximate boundary of the country where
deciduous trees begin to assume a prominent feature
in the landscape. Here also, the region of double-
rainy seasons comes to an end with the equatorial
zone; and at about the i5th parallels of latitude we
enter a region of single rainy seasons, where the year
is divided into one long period of rains, and another
of continuous dry weather. Then, as the traveller
journeys across the Bush Region, away from the
equator, towards the poles, the period of the rains

244 HEAVY FORESTS ON ALLUVIAL SANDS.

gradually becomes curtailed until at length we enter
our next division, the Desert Zone, where there are
no regular rains. It must be clearly understood,
however, that in venturing to assign these appa-
rent boundaries to the tropical rains, we merely
indicate their approximate limits. Moreover, wher-
ever special circumstances occur to favour it, great
stretches of heavy forest, thoroughly equatorial in their
character, run up, often for long distances, into the
Bush Country ; as for instance where rivers of consider-
able size pass through it, margined by alluvial plains,
or where a damp and fertile soil promotes the growth
of heavy timber.

On the other hand, wherever disturbing causes inter-
fere with the equatorial rains, and cause a dry dis-
trict to occur within the region of constant rains, the
bush extends itself into the equatorial zone, instead
of the heavy forest. We shall presently proceed to
point out examples of both these exceptional conditions,
likewise other instances on the opposite side of the Bush
Region, where the desert extends itself across the
boundaries where tree growth might be expected to
occur.

Now these differences in the vegetation are merely
indicative of climatic peculiarities, the causes of which
require to be investigated and understood before they
can be accounted for. Notwithstanding these occasional
exceptions, however, if we take the map of the
world, and study the physical geography of the coun-
tries which extend round the earth's terrestrial surface,
within the limits which we have indicated as those
of the Bush Country — it will be found that in the
main their character closely corresponds with the

DAY AND NIGHT TEMPERATURES. 245

description which we have given of this region, over
by far the greater portion of its surface. In South
Africa, Australia, and South America notably so. Also,
as far as our knowledge of this country in North Africa
extends, the same conditions seem to hold good. In
Asia too, as a general rule, the same description applies
to the greater part of the territory included in the
limits of the Bush Country in that continent. It would,
however, be too long to go over all this region in
detail. In North, or rather Central America, however,
the description of these latitudes as a bush country,
fails, for reasons which we shall presently state, although
considerable areas of regular bush do exist there also,
notably in Northern Mexico.

The leading characteristics of the climate of the
Great Bush Country generally may be briefly de-
scribed as follows: that although the annual mean
temperature is always decidedly lower than in the
equatorial zone, yet the day temperatures run up
considerably higher, especially during the dry season;
and curiously enough, we think we do not exagger-
ate when we say that the further we get away from
the equator, in these regions, the greater do these
day temperatures become; while the nights become
proportionately colder. In the section on climate, how-
ever, the causes of these remarkable phenomena have
been gone into in considerable detail — it is because of
the dryness of the atmosphere. The drier it gets,
the more scorching do the solar rays become by day,
and at the same time the more rapid does the radia-
tion of heat become from the moment of sunset. But
of course the extreme dryness of the atmosphere does

246 CLIMATES OF THE EQUATORIAL AND BUSH REGIONS.

not reach its maximum until we get into the Desert
Zone — our next division. It is there therefore that
the most extreme sun temperatures in the world are
recorded, often coupled with intense cold by night.

These circumstances have given rise to some differ-
ences of opinion as to the relative degrees of healthi-
ness of the climates in the Bush Country, and those of
the Equatorial Zone ; some authors maintaining, that on
account of the much more equable climate of the
latter (where these tremendous heats are unknown) it
is, taken as a whole, a better climate, and less trying
to European constitutions, than tropical climates further
removed from the equator, where the range of the
thermometer is much greater.

There can be no doubt that there are many ex-
tremely unhealthy places in what we have designated
as the Bush Country — where malarial fevers of severe
type are endemic; but taken as a whole, we do not
hesitate to give our verdict in its favour.

There, at any rate, there are some cool hours during
the night and early morning, when sound refreshing
sleep can be had by those to whom Nature has
given constitutions at all suitable for residence in
tropical countries; whereas under normal conditions
in equatorial countries, the difference between the
hottest hour of the day and the coolest hour of the
night, is very slight. Then again, there is in the latter,
so to speak, no cool season — whereas in the regions
of single rainy seasons there are always more or less
distinctly marked cool seasons, when the country is
comparatively healthy. Also — apart from the direct
influence of great solar heat upon the system, and the
risk to Europeans from heat apoplexy, sun-stroke,

CAUSES OF THE SICKLY SEASON. 247

and so forth — it is a remarkable fact that the hottest
season in these countries is by no means the most
unhealthy: the sickly season is the rainy season, and
more particularly the period immediately succeeding
the cessation of the rains, when a powerful sun is
drying up the saturated soil; at which time malarial
affections are generally at their height. There is
also, we venture to think, considerable risk of dysentery,
and of fevers of a typhoid character, at the commence-
ment of the rains; because the water in the streams,
etc., is then at its lowest, and the first showers are
apt to carry down into the water courses the
accumulated impurities of months, which during the
dry season are too often allowed to collect in their
vicinity : consequently we generally find the advent
of the rains everywhere marked by a large increase
in the amount of sickness, both among the native
population, as well as among the Europeans; and it
is now a matter of ascertained fact, that dysentery,
and especially typhoid fever,* are mainly (some go so
far as to say, almost altogether) due, to a contamination
of the water-supply. The mortality due to the use
of an infected water-supply is probably the largest
produced by any other single existing cause. The coming
of the rains is also marked by the immediate re-ap-
pearance of malarial diseases; and jungles, and many
other places, which the traveller could, with proper
precautions, have traversed, and even resided in,
for months with impunity during the dry season,

* Typhoid fever may be regarded, more than any other disease, as
the bane of our Indian Empire. Where cholera for example kills its
tens, typhoid kills its hundreds among the European garrison. It attacks
the hill sanitaria as well as the plains stations, and no part of India is.
exempt from its ravages.

248 RAINS AND THE DECAY OF REFUSE MATTER.

now become exceedingly unhealthy. The plague of
flies also begins — this of itself is an unhealthy sign* -
so that everything combines to impress upon the
prudent traveller the necessity of an immediate retreat
to some open, healthy situation, until the sickly season
has gone by.

The moment the heavy rains begin to fall, though
they usually have the effect of producing a refreshing
coolness in the sultry air, fermentation of vegetable
refuse is at once set up : dry leaves and other vegetable
matter, till then harmless, begin to soften, and rapidly
decay. This process is generally accompanied through-
out the thick coverts by a sickly corpse-like odour,
which then pervades their atmosphere: marking the
(to us) detrimental change which is in progress.

Evil odours may almost always be regarded as
Nature's danger signal. Certain scents are disagreeable
to us, probably because they are hurtful and unwhole-
some. The nose therefore, as we have before observed,
may be regarded as "The Sentinel of Health," on
account of the sense of smell thus warning us of
perils, even as a sentinel is posted to give intelligence
of danger near the camp of an army.

In former days when these things were less well
understood than they are now, many lives were lost
by persons exposing themselves in jungle tracts at
this unhealthy season, when some form of malarial
disease of malignant type was but too apt to cut short
their travels and their existence at one and the same time.

The phenomena which mark the advent of the rains,
can hardly fail to prove exceedingly impressive to

* We shall have more to say, presently, respecting flies, as a me-
dium of conveying infection and spreading disease.

ADVENT OF THE TROPICAL RAINS. 249

everybody who witnesses them for the first time, but
they have been so fully described in our chapter on
Climates and Temperatures, that it will be unnecessary
to enlarge upon them further in this respect. A good
idea, however, may be formed of the extreme violence
of the downpour which occasionally and indeed not
infrequently occurs, if we mention that in 1891, in
Bhownugger, in the Bombay Presidency, there occurred
an extraordinary rainfall of fifteen inches in twenty-four
hours. * It is perhaps difficult to realize all that that
tremendous deluge imports: but it is more than falls
in six months, during an average year, in the leading
agricultural districts of England, where the annual
rainfall is under thirty inches for the whole year, f

In the zones of territory comprised within the Bush
Region, as a rule, the coming of the tropical rains
occurs with great regularity, so that their arrival can
generally be calculated within a few days; and inas-
much as the whole of the pastures and crops of these
lands depend upon these rains, it is impossible to overstate
their importance; especially in a thickly populated
country like British India, where it is stated, on the
highest authority, that seventy-two per cent of the
whole male population depend for their livelihood upon
agriculture. § The failure of the monsoonal rains is thus
synonymous with famine, all over Hindostan.

The water-bearing winds which convey these rains
that give life and fertility to our Indian Empire, are
undoubtedly the grandest examples of such phenomena

* London Times of August 3, 1891.

f Encycl. Brit. Qth edit., Vol. xvi, p. 114 — Article "Meteorology."

§ See The Imperial Gazetteer of India, by Sir William W. Hunter

(Director-General of Statistics to the Government of India), 2nd edit.,

1885, Vol. vi, p. 482.

250 REGULARITY OF ADVANCE OF MONSOON AL RAINS.

to be seen in any part of the world. According to
the late Captain Maury, U.S.N., they blow over the
whole expanse of space that lies between Africa and
the Philippine Islands. It would, however, be too long
to attempt anything like a detailed description of them
here. The average rate of travel, during the "back-
ing down" to the southwards of the S.W. Monsoon,
may be set down as from fifteen to twenty miles a
day, and the march of these great air waves thus
proceeds under normal conditions, with almost as great
regularity as that of a railway train moving from point
to point, according to time table. Monsoons may be
regarded as simply deflected trade winds. Throughout
the vast expanse mentioned above, as Captain Maury
explains,—

"The N.E. trades are called N.E. Monsoons, because in-
stead of blowing from that quarter for twelve months, as in
other seas, they blow only for six. During the remaining
six months they are turned back, as it were ; for instead of
blowing towards the equator, they blow away from it, and
instead of N.E. trades, we have S.W. Monsoons." *

The season of the tropical rains is everywhere more
or less synchronous with the passing of the sun in the
zenith : for the great luminary of the day is the hered-
itary keeper of the floodgates of heaven; as the sun
proceeds north or south from the equator he opens
them : the life-giving water descends, and the earth
gives forth her increase. As the sun returns, and
recrosses the zenith, on his journey back to the equator,
he closes them again: presently the rains cease; the

* The Physical Geography of the Sea, by M. F. Maury, late U.S.N.,
i6th edit., 1877, pp. 365—66.

THE HINDOO SEASONS. 251

fields dry up; the crops ripen; and the harvest is
gathered in.

Where there is a well-marked cool season, though
there may be no actual winter, it usually follows the
cessation of the rains. The rainy season has probably
been hot and steamy, because of the more or less ver-
tical sun, and the vapours exhaled by the heated
earth; then, as the sun passes into another hemisphere,
the evaporation of the superabundant moisture tempers
the sultry heats: for, as we know, the conversion of
water into vapour, by heat, is always accompanied by
the abstraction of caloric. * This evaporation, proceed-
ing upon a gigantic scale, therefore produces a more
or less well marked cool season ; and as the process
becomes complete the hot season again sets in.

The seasons throughout the Great Bush Region are
therefore three in number — the rainy, the cool, and
the hot season. The second of these gradually disap-
pears as we approach the Equatorial Zone, where
people generally reckon two seasons only — the wet,
and the dry seasons — which in their turn coalesce
into a single season within the region of perpetual
rains at the equator, where the climate remains almost
unchangeable throughout the year. The Hindoos, we
may here remark, divide their year into six seasons
or "Ritus": (i) Vasanda, or Spring; (2) Grishma, or
the Hot Season; (3) Varsha, or the Rains; (4) Sharada,
or the Autumn; (5) Hemanta, or the Winter; and
(6) Shishera, or the Cool Season, f

* This is the secret of the refreshing coolness of the ocean breezes,
because the wind in its transit over the surface of the deep is continu-
ally evaporating and carrying off water in the form of vapour — so when
they reach the coast these winds come in cool and invigorating.

f Murray's Handbook for India and Ceylon, 1892, p. xliii of the In-
troduction.

252 TROPICAL HARVESTS.

The advent of the rains brings with it an immediate
and wondrous change. Where only just before all
appeared dry, dusty, and lifeless, the whole face of
Nature now bursts into verdure. The tremendous
downpour which usually takes place, quickly converts
the sun-dried earth into a mass of fertile mud ; and as
if by magic, trees burst into leaf; grass springs up;
and the whole country rapidly assumes the aspect of
a fertile garden.

After the long sleep of Nature in dry regions, this
transformation often almost appears like the awakening
of the dead to a new life. The Moslem prophet has
in consequence adopted this metamorphosis as the
Mohammedan symbol of the resurrection, and in several
passages of the Koran it is used in this sense. In the
old world, as we know, most of the dry, sun-stricken
countries of the Northern hemisphere have been for
centuries the stronghold of Islam : the " Dar-El-Islam "
or the House of Islam, as they are termed by Moham-
medans, in contradistinction to the " Dar-El-Harb, "
or the " Abode of the Enemy " (that is to say the
country of the infidel). *

In many parts of India, and other tropical countries,
no less than three harvests are gathered in, in the
course of a single year, and sometimes even a fourth —

* The world, in the eyes of strict Mohammedans, is divided into
these two great territories, and its inhabitants into but two great na-
tions— the Faithful and the Infidel. The Moslem is a citizen of the
whole of the Dar-El-Islam, and "El Kafir," or the Infidel, is the
possessor of the rest. The climatic range of a certain form of religious
opinions, as if they were a species of sunloving vegetable growth, is
a remarkable fact — the Dar-El-Islam in the sense just quoted being
pretty nearly co terminus with "the bush region" and our next division
"the Desert Zone." Elsewhere it can, we think, be shown that Mo-
hammedanism is more or less of an exotic — it nourishes neither in the
Equatorial nor yet in the Temperate regions.

INDIAN GRAIN CROPS. 253

such is the wonderful productive power of the sun in
combination with water. Upon the plains of Oudh,
for instance, according to Sir William Hunter, the usual
return of land amounts to three harvests annually, the
" Rabi " in the Spring ; the " Kharif " (the rainy season, or
autumnal harvest) and the " Hewant " in Winter. From
the Rabi, sown in October and November and reaped
in March and April, the chief crops are wheat, barley,
gram, peas, gujai, and birra ; from the Kharif sown in
June and reaped in October and November, rice, millets,
sawan, mandwa, kakun, and maize; from "Hewant"
reaped in December, joar, bajra, mash, and other grains,
in addition to the valuable tobacco, opium, and vegetable
crops, and spices, such as cummin, aniseed, coriander,
etc. — When the "Zaid" or fourth harvest is obtained,
it is reaped in May. While the pay of ordinary
agricultural labourers is about i^-d. per day, in money,
when not paid in grain : and artizans, such as smiths,
carpenters, etc., receive 4-|-d. per day in their own
villages, or 6d. if called away from home. * It is
therefore not to be wondered at if the price of wheat
and other grains is lowered, and that the British
agriculturist with his uncertain and variable climate
finds it hard to compete with these and other duty-
free over-sea borne bread-stuffs.

When the sun has had time to dry the soil, after
the termination of the rains, in most countries adjacent
to the tropics, this is as we have explained followed
by a brief cool season. In Northern India for example
this may be said tb last from the end of November
till the middle of February, after which the heat

* The Imperial Gazetteer of India, by Sir William W. Hunter, 2nd
edit., 1886, Vol. viii, p. 498. Ibid. Vol. x, p. 375.

254 HEATED ROCKS.

rapidly increases until May, which in most parts of
India represents the height of the hot season. The
period from March till the end of May may be taken
therefore as the most trying and disagreeable of the
year to Europeans, though it is by no means an un-
healthy time, in any other respect than that of high
solar temperatures. In Ceylon, however, April is the
worst period.

Day after day during this hot season in the sub-
tropical zones, the sun, arising in fiery glory, shines
continually \vith a dazzling lustre, actually painful to
the unshaded eye; and the incandescent rays, glowing
in a sky of spotless azure, are poured down in a flood
of glaring sunshine, of whose power and intensity
those only who have themselves resided for some time
beneath a tropical sun can form an idea. Photographs,
for instance, taken during any part of the tropical day,
are always conspicuous by the intensity of their shadows,
which appear almost black, when contrasted with the
glare in the sun-lit portions ; and so completely parched
does the ground become that in general its unprotected
surface becomes so hot that it burns the hand when
placed upon it, and it appears calcined and cracked in
every direction. Rocks also become so heated that
long after nightfall we have found sitting down upon
them in thin trousers quite like taking a seat upon a
hot plate. After the close of a hot day therefore the
incautious sitter may have to jump up faster than
he sat down ; and when sitting down on any part of
the ground by day a rug or some protection against
the heated earth is often a positive necessity. The
ground itself during the continuance of a long drought
also becomes converted into a substance like sun-dried

DEWLESS REGIONS. 255

brick, and it is then exceedingly dangerous to ride at speed
over it, a horse's foot making no more impression and
having no more hold upon it, than upon stone flagging.

In dry regions this sort of weather may last without a
break for months, during which not a single drop of rain
falls ; each day as it comes round sees the sun arise in
undiminished splendour, and as constantly pass across
the meridian off a sky where clouds are rarely visible.
Welcome therefore, both to man and beast, is the
approach of evening during the hot season ; when it
comes to bring relief from the suffocating heat and glare
of the day ! and blessed is the refreshing coolness and
tranquillity of the night, with its soft, balmy airs, its
brilliantly starlit sky, and its marvellous effects of
" chiaro-oscuro" created by the bright silvery whiteness
of the moonbeams, ' when shown in contrast with the
intense blackness of the shadows. In these regions
the advent of night is thus always marked by a sense
of restful enjoyment, the true dole c far nientc, unknown
to dwellers in more temperate climates.

Over large areas in South Africa in the hot season
the nights are endowed with an additional charm,
inasmuch as they are absolutely dewless, and a man
may sit or lie out for hours after darkness has fallen,
without his clothes getting in the slightest degree moist-
ened by dews. This is very different in damp tropical
climates, where the heavy dews will wet garments
completely through in a very short space of time. In
malarious districts especially, therefore, exposure at this
time ought to be most carefully avoided, and when it
is necessary to go out at night, it is better to wait
for some hours, until the evening dew-fall has termin-
ated. Dewless regions are rarely malarious.

256 POWER OF THE TROPICAL SUN.

Before we close our remarks upon the sequence of
the seasons, a few observations upon the power of the
sun's rays in tropical countries seem to us desirable.
There can be no doubt that they are here possessed
of a scorching" and a penetrating power which they do
not possess in the temperate zone. In England, for
instance, we every now and again have intensely hot
days, when the thermometer marks a temperature fully
as high as that usually indicated on the hottest tropical
day, say nearly 100° Fahr. in the shade ; * yet as Mr.
Wallace has been careful to point out:

"In England the noon-day sun rarely inconveniences us,
or produces any burning of the skin; while in the tropics,
at almost any hour of the day, exposure to it for a few mo-
ments will scorch a European, so that the skin turns red,
becomes painful, and often blisters, and peels off. Almost
every visitor to the tropics suffers from incautious exposure
of the neck, the leg, or some other part of the body, to the
sun's rays, which there possess a power as new, as it is at
first sight inexplicable; for it is not accompanied by any
extraordinary increase in the temperature." f

As. a matter of fact, phenomenal temperatures are,
as we have shown, by no means characteristic of the
tropical zone, and they rarely or never occur there.
The characteristic of a tropical climate is the more
or less constant maintenance of high mean temperatures
throughout the year: but the abnormal rise of the
thermometer, for short periods, to an extraordinary
height, is almost always recorded at places situated con-
siderable distances outside of the tropical area — as for

* "We have seen a temperature of 96° Fahr. registered in London.
That day (as is common in such cases) was dull and misty.
f Tropical Natiire, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 7.

CLOTHING IN HOT SUNS. 257

instance in the desert zone, or in the warmer, or even the
colder temperate regions.

It is also remarkable that upon these rare occasions
the sun is often apparently not shining" with its full
lustre, but the day is dull, and even sometimes over-
cast with haze or mist. At such times, contrary to
expectations, the heat has seldom the same penetrat-
ing or dangerous power, possessed by the sun on an
ordinary tropical day; true, in places like New York
or London the passage of a great heat wave is fre-
quently followed by alarming results, but we are
nevertheless disposed to think that most of the fatal-
ities are due on such occasions to the sufferer's own
imprudence ; and that an investigation would show that
the individual (unless previously in a bad state of
health) has undergone exposure on an empty stomach,
or has recently indulged in excessive use of intoxicat-
ing liquors. These should never be partaken of during
great heats while the sun is above the horizon.

In the tropics, however, the power of the sun's rays
must be regarded as a perpetual and ever-present source
of danger, against which the European requires to be
constantly on his guard, and against which there is no
such thing as acclimatization. We shall therefore merely
remark that a very common cause of accidents in
the tropical zone is the practice of using clothing and
tents of insufficient thickness, because of their superior
lightness ; many a man has been severely burnt while
sitting beneath the shelter of a single-canvas awning or
tent ; we take occasion to refer to it here, with a view
to impress upon the reader the folly and the danger
of living in these countries insufficiently provided in
this way, under the mistaken notion of obtaining a

VOL. I. 17

258 SUN-STROKE.

slight reduction in the weight to be carried. We may
rest assured that the sun will strike through any such
flimsy materials, and that they will afford practically
no adequate protection against the rays of a tropical
sun. It is a common thing to hear people say, " light
clothes are best for hot weather." If we take this
to mean thin things — we say no: very thin clothing
is undesirable, for the same reason that single-roofed
canvas tents or straw hats are undesirable, namely that
the sun strikes through them. By all means let the
weight be light, and the colour light — but you must
have a certain amount of substance to withstand the sun ;
this may be effected by using sun-pads, or wearing
several very thin garments one over the other, accord-
ing to ancient Oriental custom, and in various other
ways, which would be too long to enter into here.
Thus, Solymos in his "Desert Life" mentions, that
on one occasion at Dongola on board a Nile boat, he
was sternly reminded of this fact, after incautiously
exposing himself under " a stout awning " in thin things.
For he tells us that — " During an hour's lounging under
this shelter, dressed only in a thin calico robe, more
than half my body was burnt red, and smarting." *
Probably quite half the cases of sun-stroke that we
hear of are brought on by people exposing the back
of the neck and spine to the direct influence of the
solar rays, insufficiently protected. Protection to the
eyes from sun-glare is also of extreme importance.
It is now a matter of well ascertained fact that sun-
stroke may occur by exposure of the eyes, quite as
much as by that of any other part of the frame.
These incautious exposures, moreover, seem to be

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 25.

SUN-STROKE. 259

specially dangerous when persons are kept waiting and
dawdling about, while not in active exercise. This is
no doubt due to the fact that perspiration acts as a
powerful protection against the sun, but when people
are kept standing about this action of the skin is not
stimulated. In the old days in India, before these
things were properly understood, therefore, it was of
frequent occurrence for troops injudiciously exposed
to the sun in this way, to suffer severely ; and parades,
for guards of honour, funerals, and other pageants,
have been known to be followed by the most lamentable
and fatal consequences. Captain Lugard, an experienced
officer, in his recent work on East Africa, has given some
sound and sensible advice about these matters : —

"More harm" (he says) "is done by standing in the sun,
or running out of the tent for a few minutes into the sun,
with no hat or only a small cap, than by any number of
hours of walking in the hottest part of the day." *

He is a great advocate against all unnecessary ex-
posure to the sun when not in active exercise, and
believes that when walking thirst should be freely
quenched with water, or very weak tea, which assists
in keeping the skin, and especially the head, in the
moist condition which renders it almost proof against
the sun. f The comparative freedom of troops or
travellers from serious illness, when constantly on the
march, seems strongly to bear out the soundness of
these views: whereas the very frequent occurrence of
fever and other forms of illness, seems the almost inva-
riable result of remaining stationary in camps and can-
tonments. Moreover, there is another, and if possible

* The Rise of Our East African Empire, by Captain F. D. Lugard,
1893, Vol. i, p. 34.
f Ibid., p. 34.

260 HEAT APOPLEXY.

even still more fatal form of attack due to exposure
to high temperatures, known as heat apoplexy, to which
persons living in this way under shelter are subject.
Sun-stroke (Insolatio] from the direct exposure to the
sun's rays being only one form of these seizures.

Heat apoplexy, a syncopal form of heat exhaus-
tion, on the other hand is apt to proceed from a
high temperature, coupled with insufficient ventila-
tion, and not from direct influence to the sun. There-
fore it may, and often does, come on at night, when
there is no sun — as for instance on board vessels
running through the Red Sea during the prevalence
of a hot wind. The direction of these winds is generally
from the N.N.W. in the northern and from the S.S.E.
in the southern portion of that sea. Firemen and
the engine-room staff on board steamers throughout
the British merchant navy are consequently, as might
be expected, the greatest sufferers. We have taken
the trouble to closely examine the monthly returns of
the Board of Trade of the deaths of British seamen
for a period of consecutive years, and we find that
the preponderance of deaths from heat apoplexy among
them is very marked. We are aware that it is usual
as far as possible in hot voyages to employ Malays
or Negroes, but we find that they suffer about as
severely as Europeans ; and many " Lascars " die of
it, as these returns show. We also find a large
preponderance of deaths from malarial fevers among
the engine-room staff. We lay stress upon these facts
because they show that the direct exposure to the sun
is by no means the thing most to be dreaded, provided
of course that proper precautions are used ; if it were so
we should naturally expect to find the navigating officers

HOT AVEATHER VOYAGES. 261

mostly affected, as they are more in the sun than the
others— but it is not so — it is the engineers, firemen,
stewards, and cooks, whose duties keep them out of
the sun, who suffer most.

Exposure to the direct influence of the sun's rays,
when proper precautions are taken, seems therefore to
become dangerous only when it is very long con-
tinued— and above all, when from fatigue, or other
causes, the system is suffering from exhaustion; it is
to the latter fact especially that the deaths of soldiers
on the march by sun-stroke are to be attributed — and
we may add to the use of ardent spirits, as the use
of stimulants, before or during exposure, has been
found to have a direct tendency to increase both the
number and the fatal character of these attacks.

Active exercise in the sun, even during the hottest
weather, of itself however, as we have said, rarely proves
injurious, where these and other preventable and unfa-
vourable conditions are eliminated. Thus tiger shooting
in India is most successful during the height of the
hot season, when a leather guard is sometimes necessary
to shield the hand from the heat which the sun has
imparted to the gun barrels; yet the unanimous tes-
timony of all sportsmen out after tigers goes to show
that they rarely or never get sun-stroke. So also during
the Indian Mutiny in 1857 the European troops had to
make long marches throughout the hottest season of
the year. The great outbreak had in fact been timed
to coincide with the hot season, in the hope that the
great heat would unfavourably affect Europeans in their
operations in the field: * but this expectation proved

* This outbreak of the Great Mutiny began at Meerut near Delhi on May
10, 1857, i.e. at the height of the hot season. It was, however, in no

262 MARCHES DURING THE INDIAN MUTINY.

delusive: the men did march, and fought, and con-
quered, against enormous numerical odds, in spite of it ;:
and throughout the numerous wars waged by Great
Britain under similar trying conditions, our medical
officers and our generals have often commented upon
this remarkable fact, that so long as the men were
daily on the march, and that the stimulant of the
excitement of active service in face of the enemy was
continued, the army seemed to be wonderfully preserved
from disease. During the Indian Mutiny, their hardi-
hood and feats of marching, performed in the hottest
weather, repeatedly excited the wonder and unwilling
admiration of the Sepoys, who had no idea that
European troops would have been able to undergo
such a strain in that season. This circumstance there-
fore baffled all their calculations : and yet the moment
that the necessity for active exertion came to an end,
reaction set in and the health of the Europeans began
to suffer. Severe outbreaks of disease are, in fact, very
apt to occur, whenever men remain stationary for any
length of time, during the hot weather; if they are kept in
fixed camps or cantonments, sickness is, as we have said,
almost sure to follow — partly, because men's " morale "
suffers from inaction, and because the tedium of existence
often produces profound depression of spirits, as each day
comes round and seems longer, and hotter, and duller,
than the previous one; partly also from physical
causes : the liver, for instance, becomes inactive, through
want of exercise, the rest becomes broken at night,
and the man becomes generally out of sorts, active
and interesting work being the great agency of Nature

sense an uprising of the people of India, but a military revolt confined
practically exclusively to the native army of Bengal.

SPORTSMEN IN INDIA. 263

for carrying off morbid matter, by promoting the free
action of the skin. Thus men of sporting tastes are gener-
ally the best and healthiest men in tropical stations;
their love of field sports causes them to be much in
the open air, and therefore necessarily causes them to
incur much exposure to the sun; yet the whole ex-
perience of Indian life shows that these men almost
always keep in good condition, when men of inactive,
stay-at-home habits, sicken and suffer both in health
and in spirits. It seems as if man, following the
primeval habits of his race as a hunting animal, thus
most perfectly acquires that physical training and
endurance which fits him to prevail in that great struggle
for existence which is always everywhere going on.

The surface of the Bush Country may be roughly
divided into three great classes of land: ist the
Heavy Forest, 2nd the Jungle, and 3rd the regular
"Bush," or open park-like country from which this
region takes its name. As regards the first of these,
the heavy forest lands, they are principally confined
to alluvial tracts where the soil is damp and fertile, or
else to well watered ravines and valleys among hills.
In such situations stretches of forest more or less
equatorial in their character, are frequently found,
especially in its lower latitudes adjacent to the equa-
torial zone; and everywhere throughout the Bush Region,
magnificent timber of most valuable character, is found
growing in favourable situations, throughout the best
portion of the heavy forest.

As we remove further away from the equator, ever-
green trees gradually become fewer in number, and
those of a deciduous habit assume a prominent feature,
especially on mountains and other elevated places.

264

THE INDIAN TEAK TREE.

Among these deciduous trees, the Indian Teak (Tectona
Grandis] stands pre-eminent, both from its value in
a commercial point of view, and also for its splendid
proportions and beautiful foliage. In Central India
these trees attain a girth of from ten to fifteen
feet, with a stem of seventy or eighty feet to the
lowest branches. * In the forest covered hills, even
so far south as Central India, Captain Forsyth reports
that not only the teak, but almost all the trees of
these forests are deciduous : the Sal tree (Shorea
Robustd) being about the only considerable exception
to this rule — this latter being, according to the high
authority of Captain Forsyth, " almost the only ever-
green forest tree in India." f We make particular
note of this in order to call attention to the fact
that the onset of the dry season, and the intense
power of the tropical sun in these climates, exer-
cise the same effect in producing the fall of the
leaf as the frosts of winter at home. The great sim-
ilarity between the effects of intense dry heat and
intense frost, are in this, as in many other respects,
exceedingly remarkable. These points of resemblance
will be more fully considered in our Arctic section; but
as regards the effects of great solar heat, we shall merely
mention here that one of our leading authorities states
that " on the east coast of India, the vegetation is
interrupted for a longer period by the dry season, than
in Europe by the winter. " § On the other hand some
few equatorial evergreen plants, when transported into

* The Highlands of Central India, by Captain James Forsyth,
Bengal Staff Corps, and Indian Forest Department Service, reprint of
1889, p. 213. f Ibid., p. 371.

§ The Cyclopedia of India, by Surgeon-General Edward Balfour,
3rd edit, 1885, Vol. i, p. 1246.

HEAT AND DECIDUOUS TREES. 265

a cooler region, will occasionally assume a deciduous
character — but generally after a season or two the
plant perishes : it catches cold, and dies exactly like
a bird or animal exposed to the inclement influence
of a foreign climate.

Returning, however, to the consideration of the teak
and other trees of special value which are habitants
of the Bush Region, we may remark that in the rainy
season, when the teak comes into leaf, it is surmounted
by a magnificent crown of large shining leaves, each
some 15 to 1 8 inches long, and masses of yellowish
white flowers, which render it one of the most majestic
and picturesque objects in the landscape ; while at the
same time it is one of the most valuable of all trees,
producing, according to Captain Forsyth—
" perhaps the most generally useful timber in the world. —
In combined lightness, elasticity, and endurance Che says)
there is none to compare to it : its uses cover a wider range
than those of any other timber, from the handle of an axe,
to the backing of an iron-clad." *

But if the teak reigns supreme as the " Queen of
the Forest " in our Indian Empire, it is closely rivalled
both in beauty and utility by the mahogany tree
(Swietonia Mahogani) in the western hemisphere ;
which, though found growing in the equatorial forests
from about Lat. 10° N., only attains its finest pro-
portions further to the northward, where it is un-
doubtedly the most valuable and magnificent of all
timber trees in the tropical forests of the western
world.

At one time immense forests of this noble tree ex-

* The Highlands of Central India, by Captain J. Forsyth, New
Edit, of 1889, p. 31.

266 MAHOGANY FORESTS.

tended throughout the highlands of the interior of
Central America, St. Domingo and other places; where
it grows to a gigantic size, its head towering far above
all other growths, and bearing aloft a splendid crown
of light green leaves, something resembling those of
the European ash. " Its trunk is often 50 feet in height,
and 1 2 feet in diameter, and ramifies higher up into so
many arms, that the shadow of its crown covers a vast
surface. " * At one time St. Domingo mahogany was
most esteemed, but some of the finest timber of this
kind which the world now produces comes from the
British settlements in Honduras, which were established
for cutting and shipping these trees, as long ago as
1638 and 1640, from which period the right to this
territory has been constantly maintained by Great
Britain, against the pretensions of Spain, chiefly on
account of the importance of this industry.

The task of conveying these immense logs for great
distances through an almost impenetrable and trackless
forest, is as might be expected a very arduous one. The
work commences during the rainy season, in August,
when gangs of twenty or thirty men, under a captain,
are employed to search for and cut the timber, for
whose conveyance roads have then to be made, upon
which the logs, after being squared, are conveyed on
trucks during the dry season, when the ground is firm,
to the banks of a neighbouring river, upon whose waters
they are floated, during the next rainy season, down to
the sea. f

The dense and equatorial nature of the forests of

* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Central
and South America, edited by H. W, Bates, 1878, pp. 94 — 96.
f Ibid., pp. 94—96.

THE MAHOGANY TRADE. 267

Central America cannot fail to strike every observer,
and they maintain this character far beyond the limits
which we have assigned to our Equatorial Forest Zone.
It may therefore appear to be somewhat difficult to
reconcile this fact with the theory of the existence of
climatic zones encircling the earth.

We, however, venture to think that it is by no means
inconsistent with it, for as we have already pointed
out, there are no hard and fast lines in Nature : like
the margins of the ocean, these different territories are
at all times liable to be pushed backwards and for-
wards, at particular points, owing to local circumstances.
In the sea, this is governed by the elevation and de-
pression of its shores — upon the shores of the climatic
zones, it is governed by the winds of heaven. Accord-
ing to the natural law, the set of prevailing winds is
produced by variations of temperature, which thus cause
these winds to blow with more or less regularity in
a certain direction. We have endeavoured to explain
these matters, to the best of our ability, in our section
on "Climates and Temperatures," to which we beg to
refer the reader for a fuller statement of these subjects.
Now, in the special case before us, we find, as we have
said, that a dense forest of thoroughly equatorial
character, runs up far beyond the usual limits of that
great forest zone, and that it covers a very large pro-
portion of what would naturally form the Bush Country
in Central America. How shall we account for this
phenomenon ?

In the first place, what creates the dense forest
growths of the equatorial zone is the permanency of
high temperatures and moist atmosphere, combined
with a superabundant water-supply derived from the

268 CENTRAL AMERICAN FORESTS.

constant rains at the equator. If these rains were to
cease to fall, and the land was to become parched by
the intense solar heat, which would certainly follow
that catastrophe, there can, we think, be little doubt
that the great equatorial forests would wither away
and perish. So also, if these abundant rains were by
some combination of causes, carried up into the region
of the great bush country, they would carry the equa-
torial forest growths with them.

This is exactly what occurs in Central America. A
glance at the map will show how narrow the continent
is at that point ; and the vast expanses of ocean, which
stretch forth from its shores on either side.

Now, the prevailing set of the trade winds are from
the North East; these winds blow, with marvellous
regularity, for many months throughout the year, and
arrive upon the Central American coasts surcharged
with watery vapour, gathered in their passage across
the ocean. The next fact to be observed is, that all
through Central America a lofty range of mountains
forms the back-bone of the continent there. It is
known among the Spanish speaking people as the
Sierra Madre. These mountains necessarily cause an
upcast draught to take place, and thus the water-laden
winds are driven upwards into a colder atmosphere,
which at once condenses a great part of their vapour
—hence the damp, moist heat and abundant rainfall
of these regions. The formation of clouds prevents
the rapid radiation of heat by night, and thus a high
temperature is constantly kept up. The luxuriant
equatorial forest growths therefore, following the lead
of Nature, have overspread the whole of this country.
A great deal of the vegetation is evergreen, but the

THE GREAT JUNGLE COUNTRY. 269

admixture of deciduous trees nevertheless shows that
this region is outside the limits of constant rains. These
great forests are full of the most valuable timber, and
contain many of the choicest productions of the tropics— -
a good number of which are doubtless still unknown,
for the labour of exploring such places is immense,
even when they are sufficiently open and free from
malaria to warrant men of science in undertaking this
difficult task.

Leaving therefore the heavy forests of the Bush
Country we pass on to survey its characteristic fea-
tures as " The Great Jungle Country. "

The word "Jungle" (as the Hindi form of it " Jungli "
imports) consists of land that is "wild, uncultivated,
and useless,"* covered generally with a growth of
dwarf trees, bamboos, and other arborescent grasses,
but dotted over here and there with some trees of nobler
growth. There are large areas of this sort of country
consisting of intensely thick scrub, not exceeding from
fifteen to twenty feet in height, intermixed with thorny
creepers and other prickly plants, which render many
parts of it quite impassable without the free use of the
axe and slashing hook, except in places where heavy wild
animals or the jungle people have beaten narrow paths
through the thicket. There are, however, other tracts
which consist entirely of giant grasses. Dr. Schwein-
furth, for instance, describes vast districts on the elevated
table lands of Central Africa, which are covered with this
" grass forest," as he calls it. f In India also, there
are considerable tracts of just such grass jungle. Staff

* The Cyclopedia of India, by Surgeon- General Edward Balfour,
3rd edit. 1885, Vol. ii, p. 454.

f The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth.

270 HIGH GRASS JUNGLES.

Colonel Forrest, among others, writing in the early
part of this century, gives a good description of such
a tangle, seen while out shooting, which is worth
repeating :

" The height of the grass struck me as particularly won-
derful. I was mounted on a very fine elephant, not less
than eleven feet high. The howdah must have been full
two feet higher. Now when standing upright, the attitude
usually adopted by sportsmen in order to see better around
them, my head must have been very near nineteen feet above
the ground. But the grass was generally three, and in some
places six feet higher than my head. The stalks were fully
one and a half inches in diameter, and it would be almost
impossible to force a passage on foot, independent of the
chance of meeting a tiger suddenly." * [This grass jungle was
near Fatehpur, close to the Bahar boundary.]

In many tropical lands, a wide belt of unhealthy
jungle country extends along the coast line, and forms
a serious impediment to opening up the country to
commerce, or to the movements of travellers, and others
desirous of passing rapidly through it, in order to reach
the less densely wooded and more salubrious highlands
of the interior. This state of things is notably found
to exist along the sea-board of both sides of the African
continent, as well as in many other parts of the world.

The pernicious fevers which guard the pass into
Western Africa, for instance, have from time imme-
morial rendered the settlement of Europeans, except at
a few points, impossible; and have preserved those
regions almost as a terra incognita to the present day.

* P^cturesq^le Tottr along the Rivers Ganges and Jumna, by
Lieut. -Colonel Chas. R. Forrest, H.M. Staff Corps, Illustr., 4to, 1824,
•p. 134. (There are beautiful illustrations of Indian scenery in this
book).

MALARIOUS JUNGLES. 2^1

Much of the land along this coast is pestilential swamp.

Other exceedingly malarious jungles are found stretch-
ing forth along the base of mountain chains, running
through tropical countries; of which the Indian "Terai"
forms a good example. Although malaria always exists
in hot climates, wherever there are fertile tracts, and
a humid soil, it finds its stronghold in the jungle
rather than in the forest. This may be partly due to
the fact that in the heavy forests the ground is pro-
tected in a great measure from the heat of the sun,
and also that in many places the innumerable armies
of ants, and other forms of insect life, quickly consume
the fallen leaves and timber, which thus are not suf-
fered to remain on the ground to rot.

Moreover, the heavy forest rarely does well in the
worst districts, where the land is soft and swampy;
such localities being generally occupied by reeds, and
other jungle growths. Therefore along the bases of
mountain chains, the jungle usually flourishes in the most
unhealthy spots, such as the bottoms of ravines and
valleys, while the great trees are mostly found along
the drier hill slopes, where it has frequently been
remarked that the finest timber grows in the most
inaccessible places — probably because their very inac-
cessibility has guarded the trees against the assaults
of wood-cutters and other jungle people. The deadly
character of the Indian Terai, which skirts the south-
ern base of the Himalayas, has been already adverted
to. * Along the foothills of the Andes similar sickly
districts are found in many places, notably where the
bush region of Peru runs up the gorges, from its

* A description of the Terai will be found in our chapter on " Great
Mountain Ranges."

272 THE INDIAN TERAI.

junction with the dry plains. These bare table lands,
here called "El Tablazo" by the natives, are gener-
ally fairly salubrious. There can be little doubt as to
the cause of the malarious nature of the jungles in
such localities: they receive the whole of the water
descending from the hills, which here often forms
swamps and pools, or else lies hid beneath the surface
of the detritus carried down during ages by the
torrents in the rainy season. As malarial germs are
always abundant at the bottoms of ravines, which act
as a species of conduit pipe for conveying it to the
hills — the water is sure to carry an abundant supply
of these germs down with it. This is unquestionably
the case in the Terai, where many of the streams are
actually poisonous.

The exact way in which malaria is given off from
the earth, or is carried from place to place, is as yet
only imperfectly understood; but that the germs may
be absorbed, or held in suspension, by water, seems
certain. Considerable numbers of persons, for instance,
have been known to be struck down at once, after
drinking water from a stream in the Terai. * Sudden
outbreaks of malarial fever among the passengers and
crews of vessels some time at sea, are also supposed
to be due to contaminated drinking water, brought on
board while the ship was in port. Nothing therefore
can be further from the truth than the Hindoo
superstition, that water cannot be contaminated.

That being so, we think we are entitled to infer
that at certain seasons the water of streams flowing

* See our section on "The Great Mountain Ranges" and an ac-
count of such an occurrence given there.

WATER AND MALARIAL GERMS. 273

through ravines among* hills, where malaria is known
to be rife, may be, and is, carried down to the jungle
belt extending along the base of the mountain range
in a contaminated and most dangerous condition — and
if so, it follows that the subsoil in these jungle districts,
which is usually water-soaked (though the surface may
appear to be for the most part dry), is almost always
surcharged with these malarial germs, whose deadly
exhalations render a night passed by Europeans in
such localities, at certain seasons, almost sure to be
followed by a severe attack of malarial disease'. The
death of Lady Canning, wife of the celebrated Lord
Canning, first viceroy of India, from malarial fever,
after only one night passed in the Terai on her way
down to Calcutta from Darjeeling, furnishes a sad, but
remarkable instance in point. We may add that the
most dangerous times for crossing malarious tracts of
this description, are the first day or two of the rains,
after a long drought: because the sudden descent of
what are most generally torrential rains, mechanically
displaces and causes an overflow of the malarial germs,
till then lying dormant in the subsoil; but above all,
when the country is drying up, for some time after
the cessation of the rains : malarious districts are at this
period of the year hot-beds of fever and disease. The
safest period for crossing such places is during the
latter part of the dry season, because the surface of
the ground, except in sandy tracts, is then generally
hardened by the sun into a substance resembling sun-
dried brick, which forms a crust, to a great extent
impervious to the passage of malaria. Such at least
is our belief, but the state of knowledge upon such
matters is thus far, as we have already explained, very
VOL. I. 1 8

274 CROSSING MALARIOUS TRACTS.

imperfect, and the best authorities are often at variance
with each other about them.

As regards the crossing of malarious districts, it is
prudent, in all cases whenever such an arrangement
may be possible, to cross them during the day, and
on no account to encamp in them at night. If, however,
a night must be passed there the men should be con-
fined as much as possible to their tents. They should
also be given considerable doses of quinine as a pro-
phylactic, and hot strong coffee to be taken immediately
after sundown. Very small fires made in, or at the
door of the tents is another useful precaution, and
large fires to windward of the encampment kept burn-
ing all night when practicable, afford further protection.
The value of mosquito-curtains at these times is also
a matter of ascertained fact.

We must now proceed to give some account of
the giant, or arborescent grasses, as they are
called, which form so prominent a feature of jungle
vegetation.

The first and largest of this class of plants are of
course the bamboos ; we have, however, given short de-
scriptions of the most remarkable of these in our section
on the equatorial zone, and shall therefore confine
ourselves at present to saying that though the jungle
bamboos may be generally less gigantic than the great
representatives of their class already alluded to, they
form nevertheless a leading feature of the dense, or
swampy, jungle region. They are of all sorts and sizes,
from the common yellow bamboo (Bambusa Vulgaris]
which often grows to a great length, down to small
reed-like species, not thicker than the stem of a tobacco
pipe (the Bambusa Me take, a Japanese variety which

JUNGLE BAMBOOS. 275

is quite hardy, and B. Simmonsi, another small bamboo
of a somewhat similar kind, form good examples of
these small species, sometimes used for bedding pur-
poses in English gardens). Some of the jungle bamboos
are covered with terrible spines and thorns; planted
closely together in rows such bamboos make beautiful
hedges of most ornamental and impassable character.
The Bambusa Blumeana for instance is a prickly bam-
boo, which makes cattle-proof hedges of great strength.
It was originally found in the hill districts of Java, we
believe. Then there is the valuable male bamboo
{Dendro calamus Strictus], a hardy and thorny species,
which sometimes grows to a large size, and has the
peculiarity of having a solid stem. Small specimens
are therefore in use for lance shafts, hog spears, etc.
Among the smaller and more ornamental kinds we
may notice the beautiful Arundaria Hookeriana, with
a blue-green, or purple shaded skin — a native we be-
lieve of the Himalayan jungles — which is rarely thicker
than a walking stick, and one of the most ornamental
sorts that we have seen. There are specimens of it
to be seen in the Botanic gardens at Darjeeling. —
Captain Forsyth, formerly conservator of forests in
Central India, gives many interesting details about the
Bambusacese: the feathery heads furnish a valuable
fodder for stock throughout the year, and the young shoots
make a useful vegetable, much relished by many natives
of the East,* while the seeds supply the peasant population
with a valuable grain. The seeding of the bamboos,
when it becomes general, is therefore quite an event

* See respecting edible bamboo shoots, The Industries of Japan, by
J. J. Rein, p. 227.

276

THE SEEDING OF BAMBOOS.

in India; for although a certain number of them seed
every year,

" A general seeding of bamboos occurs only once in about
thirty years; when every bamboo over a vast tract of country
will drop its leaves, and form at the end a large panicle of
flowers, followed by the formation and shedding of myriads
of seeds, hardly to be distinguished from rice. This done
the bamboo immediately dies, while a fresh and vigorous,
crop at once begins to spring up from the seed." *

According to Smith's Dictionary of Economic plants,
a general flowering of bamboos took place in Bengal
and other parts of India, from 1864 to i866.f It is now,
however, as we have before stated, an ascertained fact
that bamboos of most kinds, besides propagating them-
selves by seed, will throw out " suckers " from the roots,,
much like a gigantic species of couch grass, when
the old shoots die down ; and some species do not die
at all after seeding. In these cases much will depend
upon soil and circumstances.

But although the bamboo is the largest and most
remarkable of the arborescent grasses, there are many
other kinds which grow to a height of from twenty
to thirty feet, with stout woody stems, sometimes,
considerably thicker than a man's thumb; which form
the almost impenetrable grass forests, or jungles, which
cover considerable extents of country in many tropical
regions. In these dense coverts, an army might be
hidden from view, as completely as a rabbit in a
European meadow. Many of these grasses grow in
immense tussocks, which in India are usually included

* The Highlands of Central India, by Captain James Forsyth,
Bengal Staff Corps, 1889, p. 106.

f Dictionary of Economic Plants, by John Smith, A.L.S., article
" Bamboos."

ELEPHANT GRASS. 277

under the general term of " elephant grass. " * These
grass jungles often figure in pictures of tiger-shooting,
and other Indian sports, as under shelter of their dense
and matted thickets, tigers and other heavy game
make their lairs during the hot season. Mr. Sander-
son, for instance, in his interesting work on Indian
jungle sports, frequently mentions their almost impas-
sable nature, and says they form immense coverts in
the jungles of Mysore and other parts of Southern
India; and he states that among other rank jungle
grasses, he has seen the well-known Lemon grass of
Ceylon, growing in places to a height of eighteen
feet, f This valuable grass (A.ndropogon Schcenanth^^,s)
emits when crushed a strong scent of lemon ; it grows
in immense quantities in the highlands of Ceylon, as
well as in Southern India; but its height in general
does not exceed some seven or eight feet. Lemon
grass when young forms a most valuable pasture
for all kinds of cattle; but when old, like most of
the other large growing grasses, it becomes exceedingly
hard and wiry; its leaves will cut the hand like
razors, if rudely grasped, and its stems more resemble
branches of small trees or shrubs than grasses. Hence
the term Arborescent Grasses. A strongly scented
essential oil is distilled from its leaves, known in com-
merce as " Citronelle Oil " ; in which a considerable
trade is carried on. §

* The true elephant grass of India is Typha Elephantina, which
grows along the banks of rivers, and whose roots penetrate to a great
depth (often 9 feet) into the ground. (See The Imperial Gazetteer
of India, by Sir W. W. Hunter, Vol. vii, p. 14).

f Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India, by G. P.
Sanderson, 2nd edit. 1879, p. 37.

§ The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom, by P. L.
Simmonds, 1854, p. 572.

278 KHUS-KHUS GRASS.

Another remarkable scented grass indigenous to
British India, is the deliciously perfumed Khus-Khus
grass of Rajpootana (Andropogon Muricatus], of which
mats and other fabrics are made. It is a very coarse,
woody fibred plant; things made of it are sometimes
sold in London, in the form of fans and other small
articles. Its peculiarity is that when it is wetted it
emits a delicious aromatic fragrance, something after
the same kind as sandal wood, which quite perfumes
the air of houses. It is therefore much used in the
form of mats, for hanging across doorways, verandahs,
etc., in India, during the hot weather, where, as it is
then constantly kept wetted with water, it fills the
adjacent rooms with its fragrance. The practice is
however not one that ought to be encouraged
among Europeans, as the cold damp air, though
pleasant at the time, is apt to cause chills, which
lead to rheumatism and congestion of the visceral
organs, etc.

In nearly all works of African travel we read of the
density of the great grass jungles of the interior of
that continent, which vary from three or four feet in
height on the plains, up to gigantic arborescent grasses
which render some countries very difficult of access,
during, and after, the rainy seasons. Emin Pasha
among others has made frequent mention of these
great tracts of grass forest, which wherever there
is an accumulation of water without heavy timber,
seem to take the place of trees, and form impene-
trable coverts, so dense that considerable strength
has to be used to enable a man to force his way
through, while masses of reeds of imposing height,
springing up between the other grasses, often

AFRICAN GRASS FORESTS. 279

add not a little to the difficulty of the journey. *
Dr. Schweinfurth in like manner describes the grass
in the Nyam-Nyam country, as quite fifteen feet in
height, with stalks as hard as wood, and as thick as
a man's finger, f Sir Samuel Baker also relates his
troubles with the Bari, and other wild tribes, during
his government of the Soudan, and describes the diffi-
culties and dangers of his retreat through long grass
plains of this character, where his enemies lay hid in
the tall grass, and fired out upon his caravan with
poisoned arms, etc., as it made its way painfully
along. §

These African long grass forests are generally found
in districts of either a highly elevated or swampy
character, wherever in fact the tree growths are absent.
Some of the gigantic reeds of these countries are also of a
wonderful character : one of the most notable of these
being the celebrated Egyptian Papyrus (Cyperus Papy-
rus) which is still found growing in immense quantities
in the swamps along the Nile, to the southward of
Khartoum. It was from this reed, as is well known,
that the celebrated Papyri of antiquity were obtained,
which formed in past ages the paper upon which the
ancient Egyptian writers inscribed their records ; speci-
mens of these papyri thus written upon, found in the
tombs, have been handed down in an admirable state
of preservation, and form perhaps the most valuable
historic relics of ancient Egypt at present extant

* Letters from Central Africa, by Emin Pasha, 1888, p. 19^
(Translated from the German).

j The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth, 1874, Vol. i,
P- 337.

§ Ismailia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, 1874, Vol. ii, Ch. ix, " The
March to Kionga."

280 THE INDIAN SOLA REED.

In India we find the pith of another species of water
reed largely made use of for the manufacture of sun
helmets ; this is the inner portion of the " Sola Reed "
(CEschynomene Aspera, Linn.), a reed about the
thickness of a heavy walking stick, which grows in
pools and swampy places in tropical Bengal and
Madras. * The exterior rind is of a dark brown colour,
while the inner portions consist of a soft, almost
snow-white pith, which is very tenacious, and can be
divided up into thin strips, almost like paper, which
is cleverly worked up by the native workmen into
hats and helmets, entirely impervious to the strongest
suns. They are made by adding layers of this pith
to each other until a substance about half an inch in
thickness is formed, which is light as a feather,
and as a protection against the sun comes as near as
possible to perfection; but these sola pith articles will
not stand rain, and soon go to pieces in wet weather.
The best " Shikkar hats, " for shooting in the hot
weather, are of this kind, made in two parts, in the
form of a large mushroom: the upper portion being
separated by the thickness of a finger from the lower,
and only attached to it by wads of pith at intervals,
so that when there is a wind, it quite blows the hair
about, inside the hat.

These hats may be seen in process of manufacture,
in some of the Calcutta bazaars, and also we believe
at Madras; beautiful specimens w^ere sold by a poor
native workman, who attended the passing of the
trains and sold them to passengers, at the station of
Badulla, on the railway between Calcutta and Dar-
jeeling, not far from Silliguri, where the line enters

* See Sir J. Hooker's Indian Flora, Vol. ii, p. 152.

PITH HELMETS. 281

the Terai, the great malarious jungle district of which
we have already spoken. To give an idea of how
cheaply excellent things can be made in India, we
may just mention that this poor man used to charge
8 annas for one of these hats, but of late years has
risen his price to the enormous total of 12 annas, or
say about io^d. in British money at the present rate
of exchange, for which sum we lately got one from
him. The Sola Topee, * we may here remark, of
course means " a sola reed hat, " but this has been
corrupted by Europeans into Solar Topee, or " Sun
hat " in mongrel English, and forms a good specimen
of the absurd changes and corruptions often wrought
in words and languages, which, becoming sanctioned
by time and fashion, at last become recognized figures
of speech, of \vhich the original source is forgotten.

Another remarkable group of great grasses are the
Saccharines, or sugar-producing plants, which flourish
wherever damp soil and moist atmosphere are combined
with a high temperature. Sugar is produced by a
great variety of plants and grasses, and some palms,
but of these, we need hardly say, the sugar cane
(Saccharum Officinarum] is the leading and most
valuable example. Its average height is about nine
feet, but sugar canes are sometimes fifteen feet high,
and nearly two inches in diameter. To the European
palate the pith, when chewed, has a very sweet but
rather sickly taste, though many natives in the sugar
districts seem very fond of it.

Originally a plant of the old world, the sugar cane
was cultivated in China before the historical era; and

* " Topee " is Hindi for "hat," and "Sola" is the Indian name of
he reed.

282 THE SUGAR CANE.

was subsequently, according to Professor Meyen, in-
troduced by the Spaniards into the West Indies, in
1520; when the first sugar cane was raised in San
Domingo by Pedro de Atienza. * It seems also certain,
according to the same authority, that the art of boiling
and cleaning sugar had likewise been learned from
India and China, where the process was practised from
the earliest times, f

The profits made by the culture of the sugar cane,
when the crop comes to perfection, are sometimes
enormous, as the immense fortunes that have often
been realized from it sufficiently prove. But the price
of sugar has fallen greatly of late years. — The cane is
easily propagated from " sets " or cuttings, made from
the tops ; the products we need hardly say, being three-
fold : molasses, sugar, and rum. The risks of the sugar
planter are however considerable, as the cane has many
insect enemies, and is very subject to injury by un-
favourable weather; also the districts where it suc-
ceeds best are often the home of malarial disease of
severe type.

Finally we may add, on the high authority of the
German philosopher Alexander von Humboldt, that the
yield of sugar from the cane grown in the East Indies
is greatly superior to that grown in the West Indies;
for in Bengal, according to Humboldt, the produce is
twice as great as at Havanna. § The sugar cane
requires a period of dry weather, and intense hot sun,
to perfect itself as a sugar-bearing grass ; both which
conditions are admirably fulfilled in Bengal. For these

* Botanical Geography, by F. J. F. Meyen (Professor of Botany at
the University of Berlin), 1846, p. 380.
f Ibid., p. 382.
§ Ueber Neu-Mexico, by Alexander von Humboldt, Vol. in, p. 116.

RATTANS, CANES, ETC. 283

reasons it does not do well in equatorial climates, as
in consequence of the want of a dry season, the cane
does not mature to perfection there, and the yield of
sugar is in consequence low.

Another class of jungle plants which deserve a passing
mention are the numerous varieties of rattans and other
creepers, mostly thorny, which overspread portions of
the scrub bush in the tropical jungles. Their conduct
in this respect very much resembles that of the giant
cable-like lianas of the Equatorial Zone, which there make
their way to the tops of the highest trees. Rattans
and other canes are however mostly ground creepers,
and merely cover bush and trees of the smaller size.

"Nothing," says Mr. Sanderson, speaking of this class of
plants, " can be imagined more graceful, or beautiful, than a
cane bush — the ordinary cane of commerce. It often grows
in extensive plots, but frequently in single plants, running up
trees, and crowning them with graceful plumes." :

Canes, as we know, are used for all sorts of pur-
poses, such as walking sticks, baskets, chair bottoms,
and so forth ; they grow to a great length, often to
200 feet and upwards, and every part of the plant is
covered with terrible thorns, which make touching
it in any way by no means an easy matter.

A remarkable thing about some of these canes is
that they contain large quantities of clear, and quite
drinkable water, so that when a section is cut out of
the centre of the plant it sometimes gives off a cupful
or more of good water. Canes generally grow best
in moist, alluvial bottoms, adjoining rivers ; and in these
sorts of places they often form impenetrable thickets.

* Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India, by George P.
Sanderson, 2nd edit., 1879, p. 146.

284 DWARF GRASSES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE.

The foliage of some of them much resembles that of
the smaller bamboos, something in the style of that of
our common lake reeds at home.

Before closing our remarks upon the subject of
grasses, however, it is desirable to make a note of
the fact, that although the splendour of tropical vege-
tation generally far exceeds that of the temperate
zones, in the matter of pasture grasses, we find that
the tropics can show nothing to compare with the
evenly growing velvety carpet of succulent verdure
which delights the eye in our English meadows.

The dwarf grasses which constitute our pastures are
not only peculiar to the temperate zones, but confined
to the colder portions of them, where showery, damp,
inclement weather is prevalent. Nature thus displays
a remarkable instance of that beneficent power which
we so often find exhibited, of adapting herself so as
to present some special advantage in each kind of
climate, thus balancing inequalities, and supplying the
needs of each particular country. In the warmer por-
tions of the temperate zones, these grasses are coarser,
turn brown, and wither away, under the influence of
continued fine weather and brilliant sunshine ; a super-
abundant moisture being necessary to their existence.
In climates such as those of Spain and Italy therefore,
these verdant meadows are comparatively rare. In
Ireland, on the other hand, the vapour-laden breezes of
the ocean, and the prevalence of a warm south-westerly
wind, occasioning copious rains, specially favour the
growth of grasses, thus obtaining for that country the
well-earned soubriquet of " The Emerald Isle. "

That being so, in the torrid zone, as might be
anticipated, meadows such as we are accustomed to

PAMPAS GRASS. 285

in Northern Europe, are never seen, except at the
commencement of the rainy season, when the tender
shoots of the young grass first begin to sprout ; and then
it is only for a short time that this resemblance to the
green pastures of the temperate zone is kept up: for
although varieties of almost all our principal grasses
have been identified as existing in almost every region,
their habit of growth under a tropical sun is altogether
changed ; and instead of short, close, succulent herbage,
gigantic growths of coarse, rank, broad-leafed grasses
spring up. The now well-known Pampas-grass
(Gynerium Argenteum\ a recent importation from South
America, which adorns many of our garden lawns,
furnishes a fair example of this class of grasses (that
is to say, it is a gigantic grass, which can be seen,
and which will do fairly well, in our British climate —
but it is in no sense a grass of the tropical zone).

We must now endeavour to give a short sketch of
the characteristic features, special to the open or park-
like region of the regular bush country, which in some
respects are altogether distinct from those of any other
region.

On account of the prevalence of the long dry seasons
and powerful solar heats, the trees of what we have
called " The Great Bush Country " are, as might be
expected, except in well-watered situations, mostly
dwarfed, stunted, and thorny — indeed on the African
highlands, with the exception of an occasional gigantic
Baobab tree (Adansonia Digitatd] or a clump of
Tamarinds or Sycamores (Ficus Sycomorus] * very few

* The Oriental Sycamore (spoken of in the Bible for instance) is
quite a different tree to the sycamore (Acer Pseudo-Platanus) known
in England, the latter being a variety of the maple — whereas the

286 THE GREAT BUSH COUNTRY.

large trees are to be seen. The traveller may in fact
often continue his march for many days in succession,
through extensive tracts of country, where nothing
larger than the full-sized apple or pear tree of our
English orchards are to be met with. This peculiar
habit of growth, which causes these dwarf trees to
bear a close resemblance to fruit trees, has often been
the subject of remark among travellers. Doubtless to
a certain extent it is due to the fact that as a rule
the trees stand some distance apart, till sometimes they
appear to be placed at regular intervals, almost as if
planted by human agency. Generally therefore there
is plenty of room for a horseman to ride at speed, or
even for waggons to pass without any very special
difficulty. Dense thorny clumps, wherever any traces
of moisture exist, occasionally intermixed with trees
of larger growth, are however by no means uncommon
in some of these districts ; and where these occur,
they usually form thickets so dense, and bear such
terrific thorns, as to be of an almost impenetrable
character.

In these dry regions, evergreen forms are of course
exceedingly rare, and when seen are mostly of the
dwarf-palm tribe, and confined to low-lying districts
adjoining the coast line or some great river system;
but on the highlands of the interior the trees are almost
exclusively deciduous; and in the hot season, as the

oriental sycamore is a true Jig, and edible fruits are produced from
racemes on the back of the larger branches, but not pendant to the
twigs as in the case of the garden fig (F. Carica). The " Sycamore"
fig is so called from the resemblance of its foliage to that of the
Mulberry- — and is really a purely greek word SvAK^LOQOg or the
Mulberry fig, from ZVHOV " fig" and HOQOV, " a mulberry " — (see Encycl.
Brit. 9th edit. vol. ix. p. 154— Article "Fig").

PRICKLY GRASSES. 287

vegetation becomes parched, the prevailing tint of
the landscape is of a dull ashen hue, or sombre grey
colour.

In the intervals between the bush, in the rainy season,
abundance of succulent grasses and herbage springs
up, often attaining a height of three or four feet or
more, which then affords excellent pasturage for stock
of all kinds; but as the dry season sets in, and these
grasses ripen, assuming an appearance very much like
ripe oats or wheat growing in an English corn field,
they are then, however, apt to become exceedingly hard
and wiry; spikes often forming at the ends of the
stalks, which at such times renders travelling exceed-
ingly disagreeable, as the sharp and sometimes barbed
points inflict nasty wounds both upon man and beast.
These spikes are also apt to break off, and fill the
clothes of the passers-by with prickles, which soon
make them un wearable. Stout leather leggings there-
fore in these districts become almost a necessity.
Doubtless it is these, and other kindred difficulties,
which have called into existence the curious, narrow,
beaten footpaths, which exist throughout the whole
interior of Africa. The long grass and thorny bush with
which the wilderness is there covered, generally compel
travellers to confine their wanderings to these well-
worn tracks, the necessity for which thus at once
becomes apparent.

The tremendous thorns with which the bush is armed,
also seem to be a special characteristic of the bush
country ; these thorns are as a rule quite two to three
inches in length, and often considerably longer.
They are also stout in proportion, and of course capa-
ble of inflicting the most serious wounds. Many of

288 THE THORNY BUSH.

them have, in fact, all the characteristics of a nail.
Those of the Acacia Tomentosa, for example, have
earned the soubriquet of " The Jungle Nail." Indeed
almost all trees of the mimosa and acacia tribe, which
form a considerable part of the bush forests, are
noted for their terrible thorns ; and wherever their grace-
ful plumes are seen, it becomes a species of warning
to travellers to beware how they come into contact with
them. Before quitting this " thorny " subject however,
we may add that it has generally been supposed that
Nature has almost universally armed the vegetation
of this region with these formidable weapons as a
protection against injury by animals, many of whom
are tree-feeders, who live not so much upon herbage,
as upon the leaves, shoots, and smaller branches of
the arborescent vegetation.

In the first place bush feeding animals, like the camel,
will eat up the thorns with the twigs, as if they did not
exist. It has farther been pointed out by Dr. Hans Meyer,
a well-known German traveller and botanist, — "that
these thorns are not to be regarded as a defence against
animals, so much as a protection against the drought
of a dry season — which here often prevails in extra-
ordinary intensity." Dr. Meyer explains that this is
effected — "by partial suppression of leaves, which be-
come indurated and form thorns, and these later on
develop into branches, and give rise to other thorns;
which shoot out from the stem alternately with the
true leaves, and form a spinal, the extremity of each
twig developing likewise into a sharp thorn. It is
self-evident," he goes on to say, "that with such a
suppression of foliage, there must be a corresponding
diminution of transpiration, and the tree is thus enabled

ACACIA BARKS. 289

to preserve its sap during the dry season, when its
roots cannot any longer obtain moisture." *

A large proportion of this thorny bush, as we have
said, is usually composed of various kinds of trees
belonging to the Acacia tribe; and the intense heat
and drought causes a shrinkage of the bark, in conse-
quence of which cracks are formed, from which valu-
able gums exude and solidify.

This, in fact, is the great gum-producing country.
Various species such as "Acacia Arabica, A. Vera,
A. Ehrenbergii, and A. Tortilis, yielding the well-
known gum Arabic" — while "the Acacia Verek, A.
Seyal, and A. Adansonii, furnish a similar gum,
known as gum Senegal" — also "the Acacia Catechu,
and several other species yield catechu by boiling
down the wood, and evaporating, so as to get an ex-
tract." f

These species are for the most part natives of Ara-
bia, the East Indies, and Africa. Gum Arabic is col-
lected in Northern Africa, by the Arab traders, in
immense quantities.

" It begins to flow at the beginning of the dry season,
which is generally about November, and the harvest lasts six
weeks, during which time the collectors live almost entirely
upon the gum, which is highly nutritious, six ounces of it
being sufficient to support a man for twenty-four hours. "§

In some parts of the country almost any amount of
it may be collected. Sir Samuel Baker describing its

* Across the East African Glaciers or the First Ascent of the
Kilimanjaro, by Dr. Haas Meyer, pp. 67 — 8. (Translated from the
German by E. H. S. Calder, 1891).

f Encycl. Brit. Vol i, p. 63 (Qth edit.).

§ Smith's Dictionary of Economic Plants.

VOL. I. IQ

2 QO GUM ARABIC.

profusion in the neighbourhood of the Stettite says
that in December 1862

" there was a perfect exhibition of gum Arabic bearing trees.
At this season " (he says) " the gum was in perfection and
of the finest quality, in beautiful amber-coloured masses upon
the stems and branches, varying from the size of a nutmeg
to that of an orange — hard as ice on the exterior, but limpid
in the centre, resembling melted amber, and as clear as
though refined by some artificial process. The trees were
perfectly denuded of leaves from the extreme drought, and
the beautiful balls of frosted gum recalled the idea of pre-
cious jewels upon the trees in the gardens of the Arabian
Nights." *

This gum was also exceedingly sweet and pleasant
to the taste.

It is quite conceivable that some of these stories of
enchanted gardens related by writers of Oriental ro-
mance, may have had their origin out of ideas created
by scenes of this kind. The vast extent and desola-
tion of these boundless wildernesses, the curious freaks
of the mirage, and the extreme sameness of the land-
scape during the dry season, is, as the great Dr. Liv-
ingstone has more than once observed — "peculiarly
conducive to meditation, and one is glad of any subject
to occupy the mind, and relieve the monotony of the
weary treadmill-like trudge-trudging. " f

The romantic fancies with which the minds of
nomadic peoples of the Arabic race are filled, are thus
easily accounted for; while their belief in Genii, and
other spirits of the waste, naturally causes their tales
to be mostly coloured by visions of the supernatural.

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker,
1867, pp. 336— 7.

•)• Expedition to the Zambesi, by David Livingstone, 1865, p. 506.

GREAT LONG GRASS FIRES. 2QI

Thus the mirage is often spoken of by the Arabs as
Bahr-Es-Sheitan, that is to say the Sea, or waters of
Satan.

When the long grass, with which many of these
great tracts of bush country are covered, and among
which the trees are dotted about, becomes desiccated
by drought, it is usually the practice of the natives
to set fire to it, with the double purpose of rendering
travelling more easy, and of encouraging the rapid
growth of young grasses, immediately the rains begin
to fall, which then at once becomes the resort of
game of every kind. And as might be supposed,
when this is set on fire, the spectacle is often both
grand and terrible; the whole country in fact frequently
becomes, on these occasions, one mass of raging flame,
the line of fire extending over a front many miles in
breadth, through which it is wonderful that any
vegetable substance can pass and still escape de-
struction.

Dr. Livingstone states that he has seen flames thirty
feet high, shooting up into the air ; accompanied by
dense volumes of black smoke, while the atmosphere
was filled with the charred remains of burnt grass,
pieces of which were falling all around, as thickly as
a shower of black snow. * The injury to vegetation
is however not so great as might be supposed : the
rapidly passing wave of flame merely^singeing, without
destroying, most of the trees; while the roots of the
herbage remain wholly unaffected by it;~and the ensuing
rains immediately convert the bare and blackened
surface into a fairy-like scene of exceeding richness
and beauty. Nevertheless these^annual fires undoubtedly

* Expedition to the Zambesi, by David Livingstone, 1865? p. 52^.

292 BEAUTIFUL ACACIA FOLIAGE.

exercise a great influence in preventing the natural
formation of humus, or surface mould produced by the
decay of vegetable refuse, and thus tend to impoverish
and check the general improvement of the soil.

Where the bush, as is often the case, mostly consists
of trees of the mimosa and acacia tribes, many of them
are then covered with a profusion of deliciously scented
flowers, for which these species are so justly cele-
brated; which together with their graceful feathery
sprays of tender green leaves, and the verdant carpet
of grasses shooting up all around, present a picture
which is always most attractive.

Some of these trees, at this season, are positive mod-
els of natural beauty and elegance. Visitors to the
South of Europe and the Italian lakes, for instance,
will doubtless be familiar with one of the hardier
varieties of the acacias, which is largely made use of
as an ornament in the gardens there — we refer to the
Acacia Dealbata, a native of Southern Australia, whose
beautiful silvery gray bark, reddish brown twigs, and
delicate pinnate foliage constitute a striking object in
the shrubberies at these places, which at once arrests
the attention. It is a tree which under favourable
circumstances grows to a considerable size, and its bark
(said to contain a larger percentage of tannin than any
other) * forms a tanning substance which, if this plant
were more largely cultivated, would doubtless prove of
great economic value. It has of late years been
largely cultivated in our South African colonies, in
consequence. Acacia Lopantha is another lovely foliage
plant, young specimens of which give a charming

* The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom, by Peter
L. Simmonds, p. 405 .

ACACIA TIMBER. 293

effect as a bedding plant in the London parks.

Then as regards the floral beauty and highly scented
blooms of some of these trees, we may mention the
well-known African species Acacia Giraffa as a good
example, which during the rains is often to be seen
covered with magnificent yellow flowers, which exhale
an aromatic and overpowering perfume. * This tree
which is largely distributed throughout Africa, is
known in South Africa as the " Kameel Doom " or
" Giraffe Thorn " ; it grows there to a great size, and
forms a most valuable timber which is said to be
harder than oak, and exceedingly strong and dur-
able ; it was in consequence highly esteemed for the
axles of Cape waggons, and as such often proved
a friend in need to the traveller throughout the South
African wilderness. In Northern Africa, and in the
Soudan, it is known to the Arabs as the Soont, and
under various other local names.

The Acacia Formosa which supplies the valuable
timber known in Cuba and the West Indies as " Sabicu " ;
the A . Seyal, supposed to be the Shittim wood of the
Bible ; f the A . Melanoxylon or " black-wood " of
Australia, which attains a great size and is much used
for furniture; and the A. Homalophylla, a fragrant
timber known as " myell-wood " and used for orna-
mental purposes: all form valuable examples of the
Acacicz — of which it is estimated that there are about
420 species, widely scattered over the warmer regions
of the globe. § Trees of this family specially abound
in Australia and Africa, and indeed over the whole of the

* The Wild Sports of Southern Africa, by Captain Cornwallis
Harris, R.F., 3rd edit. 1849, p. 46.
f Encycl. Brit. Vol i, p. 68, 9th edit.
§ Ibid., Vol. i, p. 68.

2 94 MIMOSA BLOOMS.

dry-hot climates in the Old World, while the Mimosa
forms are more generally met with in the New. The
latter are also more strictly confined to the torrid zone,
whereas certain varieties of the Acacias flourish in the
warmer temperate zones — and some forms will succeed
tolerably well even in much colder climates. The
sweet scent of the Mimosa blossoms, in the season of
flowers, frequently fills the air with such an overpowering
fragrance as to become disagreeable after some time.
Even now, as we write of it, the powerful but some-
what sickly aroma of the mimosa-bloom, rises up in
imagination to our nostrils, exactly as if we were still
surrounded by the great wilderness of flower-covered
shrubs, glowing in the resplendent brilliancy of a
vertical sun.

The Mimosae, so called from their mimicry of cer-
tain movements of animals, though exhibiting a great
wealth and variety of species, amounting according to
Bailou to 28 genera and noo species, are however of
much less economic importance than the Acaciae; but
they supply very valuable tanning barks, that of the
Mimosa Decurrens, a well-known Australian species,
known there as the Black Wattle, being according to
Professor Brandt, half as strong again as the best
English oak bark. The Mimosae are also remarkable
for the exceeding beauty and delicacy of their bipin-
nate foliage, but still more, as the Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica points out, because of the wonderful " sleep
movements" which are exhibited by some of them.

THE SLEEP OF PLANTS is a natural phenomenon
first discovered nearly a century ago, by the daughter
of the celebrated Swedish botanist Linnaeus, and though
few people even now seem to be aware of the fact,

THE SLEEP OF PLANTS. 295

it is practically certain that the phenomenon of sleep
is common to the whole range of both the animal and
vegetable creation — as indeed are most of the leading
vital functions of our frames, such as respiration, exhala-
tion, circulation, nutrition, and even sensation; the
latter however, of course only exists in a very minor
degree in the vegetable creation. Plants are also
created male and female, and are subject to many of
the medical and even surgical diseases, common to
man and animals. Thus plants suffer from improper
food, sudden changes of weather, or draughts, and
catch cold much as we do; and of surgical ailments
it will be sufficient to mention tumours, warts, canker,
and hemorrhage. It would however involve the dis-
cussion of details too long and too technical in their
nature, to admit of going at any length into these
subjects in these pages.

But as regards sleep, the fact will doubtless be fam-
iliar to most people that many kinds of flowers are in
the habit of closing upon the approach of evening ; we
need go no further to seek for an instance in point
than the common daisy, which is seen in numbers on
almost every garden lawn. These little flowers may
all be seen to close tightly up, as the sun goes down ;
to sleep fast throughout the night; and to awake again,
and expand their flowers the following morning, under
the influence of the solar rays. It was these move-
ments that the learned Linnaeus called " the sleep of
plants."

It has however sometimes been supposed that they
were caused by cold, and were that so, it would be a
striking example of the existence of sensation in plants,
to which we have already alluded ; but this theory has

296 THE DISCOVERY OF PLANT SLEEP.

been disproved by the experiments of the elder De
Candolle, the great Swiss botanist, who found that they
were exhibited by plants enclosed in hot-houses where
the temperature was constantly maintained at a fixed
point, showing that these movements were due, not to
cold, but to the abstraction of light* — they went to sleep
in fact, much as the birds do, as Linnaeus had said,
upon the approach of night.

Louis Figuier, a learned French physician, only
lately deceased, has given some interesting details upon
this subject in his "Histoire des Plantes," and tells
us that when the sleep of plants was first discovered,
and when Linnaeus saw " that this phenomenon could
hardly be confined to a single plant" (such as the
Lotus then under his observation) but must be " general
throughout the vegetable kingdom" — he forthwith
devoted his nights to the study of this question, with
the result that " at every step he discovered fresh facts"
in support of his supposition ; respecting wrhich, as Mon-
sieur Figuier remarks, it may be asserted that "no
natural fact once brought into notice has been so
rapidly established by a host of confirmatory evidence"
as was this curious function of sleep among the members
of the vegetable creation, y Remarkable also is the
additional circumstance first brought to light by De
Candolle, that precisely as in the case of the young of
both man and animals, to whom the amount of sleep
necessary in infancy is greatly in excess of that required
by adults, so also with young plants this phenomenon is

* See collection of reports to the " Institut National " of France, in
the British Museum, " fait par les citoyens Thouin et Desfontaines sur
un memoire intitule — ' Experiences relative a V influence de la lumiere
sur quelques vegetaux par le citoyen Decandotte.' "

f Histoire des Plantes, by Louis Figuier, Paris 1865, pp. 109 — 112.

SENSITIVE PLANTS. 297

much more strongly marked than in older specimens, *
seedling plants and babies being both remarkable for
the length and soundness of their slumbers.

Now, in many of the Mimosse, and in some of the
Acacise, these sleep movements are specially clearly
defined, for upon the approach of evening, their foliage
is seen to become closely folded up, and to open again
at sunrise on the following morning. A number of
curious experiments were made by De Candolle with
the sensitive plants (Mimosa Pudica, and Mimosa
Sensitive), and it was found that they could be put
to sleep, like babies, almost at will, for plants removed
from daylight to darkness quickly fell asleep — while
others, exposed for several nights in succession to
artificial light, and kept in darkness by day, accustomed
themselves to their new conditions, " opening their
leaves in the evening, and closing them again in the
morning at the hour when their night commenced."
In the case of other sensitive plants deprived of light
altogether, it was found that the alternations of sleep-
ing and waking still went on, but became very
irregular, f

The sensitive plants, of which there are several
varieties, as we know, are so called from the curious
fact that they are exceedingly sensitive to anything
touching them ; and in Ceylon and some of the Brazilian
forests, where the Mimosa Pudica is a common weed,
many square yards covered with these plants may be
seen instantly to shrivel up, exactly like a living
creature in pain or fear, when anyone treads upon its

* Histoire des Plantes, by Louis Figuier, p. 109.
t Ibid., p. 112; see also Encycl. Brit. Vol. xvi, p. 345, 9th edit.,
article "Mimosa."

298 THE BAOBAB TREE.

tendrils. Even the vibration of vehicles passing along
the road near one of these extraordinary plants is suf-
ficient to cause it to close its leaves, as if alarmed at
the approach of a possible foe. We have often amused
ourselves with experiments upon the nervous system
of the Sensitive Plant. The "Mimosa Pudica" is a
pretty object everywhere in the countries where it
flourishes ; and on dry banks fully exposed to the sun-
light, spreads itself like a carpet closely over the
ground, which it often completely covers with its
tendrils. Its delicate pinnate foliage is of a very dark,
almost olive green colour. The leaves are very small,
and at certain seasons it bears numerous pretty little
pink balls of flowers.

If a stick is somewhat roughly drawn across a patch
of it, or if it is gently beaten with a wand, whole
square yards of ground may be seen to suddenly change
colour, through the sudden closing up of the leaves—
which shrivel up into almost invisible shapes of a brown,
earth-like shade (such being the colour of the under
part of its foliage), and the ground appears thus, as
it were, instantaneously bereft of herbage. The effect
is a most curious one to witness. Finally, we may
remark that this plant carries out this operation on its
own account the moment that the shades of evening
approach, and remains thus tightly closed up through-
out the entire night. The little sensitive plant thus
affords one of the best examples of "the Sleep of
Plants. "

Many curious facts respecting these and other kindred
subjects might be added, but we must pass to the con-
sideration of other matters more directly connected with
the characteristic features of the Bush region.

BAOBABS ON THE SENEGAL RIVER. 299

•,'

Among the most remarkable of the vegetable pro-
ducts of this open steppe region, the gigantic Baobab
(Adansonia Digitata] deserves at least a few words
of passing notice. The range of this curious tree
extends over the whole of tropical Africa, wherever
tracts of bush country (of which it is essentially a habitant)
occur to furnish locations suited to its peculiar habits:
for as we have already intimated, such situations, as
for instance dry, elevated highlands, are found here and
there throughout Equatorial Africa, where the Baobab
seems to flourish as freely as in the vicinity of the
tropic, which appears to be its natural home. *

This remarkable tree which belongs to the family
of the Malvacece, was first brought into notice, about
1749, by the French naturalist Michel Adanson, after
whom it has been named, and by whom some gigantic
specimens were discovered on the Senegal River ; some
of which were estimated by him to be upwards of 5000
years old f : a result which he obtained by comparing
them with the size of smaller specimens whose age
was ascertainable by sectional cuttings of their stems.
There can be no doubt that these strange misshapen
trees are not only among the most long-lived, but
also among the most ancient (according to Humboldt,
the German philosopher, probably the most ancient) of
all known species of arborescent growths; and the
Boabab is in all probability a relic of the vegetation
of the primeval world, transmitted to us through periods
of immense antiquity.

The peculiar torpid habit of growth of these vege-

* A pair of fairly good specimens of the Baobab are to be seen in
the Botanic gardens at Bombay. These are of course small trees but
give a good idea of the habit of growth of the larger natural specimens.

j Smith's Dictionary of Economic Plants, 1882.

300 ENORMOUS ANTIQUITY OF BAOBABS.

table monsters, whose natural habitat are the intensely
dry, stony, almost waterless tracts of Bush Region,
where the annual period of growth is generally re-
stricted by drought to a very short part of each year
— naturally contributes to spread their term of exist-
ence over long periods of time, during which the tree
stubbornly continues to put forth its little tuft of leaves
during the short rainy season, and then relapses into
its apparently lifeless state for the remainder of the
year; and thus it comes that the learned Baron von
Humboldt considered them " the oldest living organic
monuments of our planet" * — for in endorsing the con-
clusions come to by Adanson respecting the great
trees described by him, Humboldt remarks: "they
would date back to the times of the builders of the
Pyramids, or even to Menes, an epoch when the con-
stellation of the Southern Cross was still visible in
Northern Germany." f

An old Baobab therefore forms, as might be ex-
pected, a striking and venerable object, which is generally
visible from a great distance in the landscape, whose
vegetation mostly consists, as we have already shown,
of dwarf and thorny mimosse. " One must in fact
have seen and contemplated this giant of the vegetation
of the tropics to obtain an idea of it — one imagines
oneself dreaming on seeing it." § Thus the French
traveller, Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, speaks of
the Baobab.

It has been a general subject of remark among

* Quoted in Smith's Dictionary of Economic Plants, 1882.

f Ansichten der Natur, by Alexander von Humboldt.

§ Le Desert et le Soudan, Etudes sur PAfrique du Nord, par Mon-
sieur le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, 1853 — p. 77 (Translated from
the French).

DIMENSIONS OF GREAT BAOBABS. 301

travellers that a young Baobab is rarely or never seen.
It may be that this is due to want of observation, or
because these small specimens are not at first sight
easily recognized as of the same species, for in the
collection of Economic Plants at Kew Gardens, we
have been informed, no difficulty has been found in
propagating it. * The remarkable feature about the old
tree is, however, its short gouty stem, entirely dis-
proportioned in its immense girth to its height, some-
times more resembling a huge cask than a tree trunk ;
while its branches, which seem to form a mere tuft at
the top of some of the older trees, are few in number,
yet massive as its stem ; and of course, for reasons
already pointed out, the tree is rarely seen in leaf.
The leaves themselves, however, when in being, are
" digitated " like the fingers on a man's hand, and
somewhat resembling those of the horse chestnut, while
its wood is said to be soft, and not much firmer than
cork, and succulent as a carrot. " f

Sir Samuel Baker gives an interesting description of
some of these grand trees, growing along the course of
the Settite River of Abyssinia, in a wild and rugged
district, where the scenery was "just like an English
park, with no larger timber than thorn trees," save
and except these great baobabs and the Tamarind
(Tamarindus Indicd), another of the splendid vegetable
treasures peculiar to this region, concerning which we
must find time presently to add a few details. Sir Samuel
Baker measured one of these Baobabs, which he says

* Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, however, states that small seedling
Baobabs are common in Kordofan, but that it was most difficult to-
form any idea of their age. See his Le Desert et le Soudan, p. 73.

f The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Bakerv
1867, pp. 355—6.

302 BAOBABS AS CISTERNS.

was 51 feet i inch in circumference.* From South
Africa Mr. Chapman tells a similar tale : " We were lost in
amazement," he says, "at the stupendous grandeur of
this mighty monarch of the forest;" another Baobab,
whose dimensions, taken " with a measuring tape,
showed its circumference to be at the base 29 yards." y
That of course would give it a diameter of some 27^
feet. Generally, as we might naturally expect, these
immensely ancient specimens are hollow in the heart,
cavities of a very extensive nature being often formed,
some of which are so capacious, as to afford a dwelling-
place for parties of wild and wandering natives, who
occasionally take up their quarters there. These hollows
are also frequently found to become filled with water
during the rainy season, thus forming a most efficient
natural cistern, where the precious fluid, being well
shaded from the sun, is often preserved in considerable
quantities throughout the dry season. According to
the well-known French traveller, Count D'Escayrac de
Lauture, a great authority on desert travelling, these
vegetable cisterns are found to exist in considerable
numbers in the Soudan, where they are turned to profit-
able account by the natives, when water is scarce. § The
hollows in some of these trees are, he says, so extensive,
that they have been known to hold as much as 20,000
gallons, which were stored up in the heart of a single
tree. **

The fruit of the Baobab, which is contained in a

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker,

1867, p. 376.

f Travels in the Interior of South Africa, by James Chapman,

1868, Vol. i, p. 62.

§ Le Desert et le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Laiiture,
p. 76. ** Ibid.

THE BAOBAB IN CEYLON AS AN EXOTIC. 303

brittle shell five or six inches or more in length, con-
taining seeds and pulp, something- similar to that of the
Tamarind, affords a grateful and refreshing sub-acid
substance, highly valued by travellers, and when mixed
with sugar and water it makes a very pleasant drink *—
and finally a decoction of its bark has been found to
possess properties similar to quinine, and in case of ne-
cessity has been used as a more or less effective sub-
stitute for the latter, f We fear, however, that we
have not sufficient data to speak more decidedly on this
point; we should therefore be glad to hear that the
medicinal virtues of this bark had been given a fair trial.

Some doubts, we think it right to state, have been
attempted to be thrown upon the supposed great anti-
quity of the giant specimens of the Baobab, to which
we have already alluded ; and we understand that this
tree has been quite naturalized in the northern part of
Ceylon, where observations collected upon its growth
are said to show, that the estimates of its age given
by Humboldt, who speaks of it as " the oldest organic
monument of our planet, " are " altogether fallacious, "
and that " the Baobab is now well known to be a
very fast-growing and short-lived tree." §

On this head, we shall merely observe, that trees
and plants are very often known to completely change
their entire nature and habits, by transplantation to a
foreign soil and climate. Of this fact, numerous
instances could easily be quoted, and nowliere more

15 Travels in the Interior of Soiith Africa, by James Chapman,
Vol. i, p. 62.

f Pharmaceutical Journal^ Vol. viii, p. 89 (1848).

§ Sir J. Hooker — quoted in Catalogue of Trees etc. at the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, by D. Morris, Assistent-Director, published
at Colombo, 1879 (by Government Authority), p. 74.

304 THE TAMARIND TREE.

readily than in Ceylon, where there are many striking
examples of it; for instance the peach and other trees
of the temperate zone have there turned into evergreens.
That the Baobab may have become " a fast growing
tree" in Ceylon, need not therefore surprise us. It
merely proves that it is one of those trees whose
nature has changed upon its introduction into that
island, and in consequence we are not at all surprised
to hear that it is there " a short-lived tree. " But the
improbability that these gigantic specimens of it
should be so also, in the dry desert regions spoken
of by Sir Samuel Baker and others, must strike every
thoughtful mind. There, though there is a season of
luxuriant growth, its very shortness would render the
existence of fast-growing trees impossible. Moreover,
all the desert trees and shrubs, so far as we know,
are distinguished by a peculiarly slow and dwarfish
form of growth: as evidenced by their compact appear-
ance and the shortness of their twigs. We therefore
still believe the views of the distinguished German
philosopher Humboldt to be correct, and that those of
his modern commentators, in this instance at least, have
been arrived at upon insufficient and fallacious data.

Another of the magnificent productions of the dry
regions of the bush country is the Tamarind tree
(Tamarindus Indicd>), which we feel we ought by no
means to pass over without a few words of notice. It
is, as its name denotes, indigenous in our Indian
Empire (but it is also widely spread over other regions,
in Africa and elsewhere, in general strictly within the
Tropical Zone), and to our mind there forms one of the
chief glories of its botanical treasury. Sir Samuel Baker,
for instance, considered it one of the handsomest trees

SIZES OF GREAT TAMARIND TREES. 305

in the Tropics ; * and for ourselves we may say we
have never tired of admiring the venerable beauty of
some of these great Indian trees, whose age must
certainly be numbered by many hundreds of years. It
is unfortunate that history rarely enables us to fix the
ages of trees ; the most that it generally enables us to
do is to find certain specimens made mention of at some
distant era in the past, when they were already noticed,
not as young, but even then as aged trees, venerable
and striking for their majestic appearance. The bio-
grapher is then sometimes, but alas ! on but rare occa-
sions, constrained to mention them in his writings.

We fear we are not in a position to say where the
finest and greatest of such trees are to be found; Sir
Samuel Baker mentions one growing in Ceylon nearly
forty feet in circumference, with branches covering
nearly half an acre of ground ; f near the Sacred City
of Benares also are many splendid specimens, and at
Allahabad (the present capital of the N.W. provinces)
there is, among others, a specially fine tree in the
garden of the "Khusru Bagh," which was occupied
as the head-quarters of Lyakut Ali, the leader of the
Allahabad mutineers in i85y.§ This tree measures 28
feet in circumference, and has an immense spread of
branches. The Tamarind is at all times a tree of sin-
gular beauty, and is also evergreen, bearing some
resemblance in leaf and colour to a gigantic yew-tree,
but the foliage which is much more soft and feathery
is of a lighter green and grows very close and thick,

* Eight Years in Ceylon, by Sir Sam. Baker, 1855, p. 262.

f The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1854.

§ This man was known as "The Moulavie" — by caste a weaver,
by trade a schoolmaster, but really a religious fanatic and pretender
to Royal descent.

VOL. I. 20

306 PILGRIMS RESTING UNDER TREES.

so that on the hottest days it casts a large circle of
umbrageous shelter around it : admirably fulfilling the
conditions pictured in these beautiful lines of Byron,
descriptive of pilgrims resting under the shade of
ancient trees :

"Here, in the sultriest season let him rest:
Fresh is the green beneath these aged trees.
Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast,
From Heaven itself he may inhale the breeze.
The Plain is far beneath; oh! let him seize
Pure pleasure while he can: The scorching ray
Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease.
Then let his length, the loitering pilgrim lay,
And gaze untired, the mom, the noon, the eve, away." *

Though these lines were descriptive of a scene in
far other climes than the plains of India, they stand
prominently forth as an admirable picture of clumps of
this noble tree, as they are found growing there, with
restful groups of white-robed natives reclining beneath
their shade, when in the hot season an incandescent
sun scorches the surrounding plain with rays of fire, f
The Tamarind is regarded by Orientals peculiarly a
tree of the East, and of India in particular, for both
in the Arabic and the Persian, it is known as the
" Tamar-El-Hind, " from which its European name is
evidently taken. Another fine description of just such
another picturesque scene, is found among the numer-
ous striking and dramatic allusions to oriental life,
which we find so frequently made use of throughout

* Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto ii, Stanza 50
(N.B.— This scene is laid in Greece near the convent of Zitza).

f Among some of the Indian Natives, however, the Tamarind is
regarded as an unhealthy tree to camp under.

SCRIPTURAL DESCRIPTION OF A GREAT TREE. 307

the Scriptures. It is taken from the book of the
Prophet Daniel —

" I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the Earth, and
the height thereof was great. The tree grew and was strong,
and the height thereof reached unto Heaven, and the sight
thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof
were fair, and the fruit thereof much: and it was meat for
all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the
fowls of Heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh
was fed of it." *

It would be difficult for any word picture to convey
a finer idea of a group of giant trees, rising out of
the boundless flat surface of a great plain, such as
that of Northern India; such specimens are here seen
afar off, upon the distant horizon, towering towards
heaven, and are visible for miles in every direction ;
literally in this case " to the end of all the world, " that
is to say, for five or six miles, to the limits of the
terrestrial horizon. We can have no doubt that such
is the interpretation to be put upon this passage,
which thus read would be strictly correct. Such trees
form a grateful spectacle at all times, to break the
monotony of the landscape, and may often be seen thus
rising upon the boundaries of the horizon, which the
contour of the earth's curvature here limits to a man
travelling over its surface, somewhat to the distance
we have indicated above.

Upon the great plains of India such groups of trees
generally consist among others of trees of the Ficus tribe,
such as the Banyan (Ficus Indica, Linn.), the Peepul
(Ficus Religiosd), or the Tamarind (Tamarindus Indica),
and in some plkces of the various Bombacese, especially

* Daniel iv, 10 — 12.

308 AFRICAN TAMARIND FOREST.

the Red Cotton tree (Bombax Malibaricum, Linn.) * ; but
it is evident that the Scriptural description would apply
with peculiar force to the Tamarind, whose " fruit was
much " and " meat for all, " for none of these other
trees, though all of them are splendid examples of ar-
borescent grandeur, produce good fruit of an edible
nature. The value of the tamarind in this respect is
well known; its fruit grows in white, hard-shelled
pods, four to six inches long, something like French
beans, which contain, when fresh, seeds and a deli-
cious sub-acid pulp, very grateful to the palate in hot
weather. They are consequently much sought after
by monkeys and other creatures, as well as by man.
Sir Samuel Baker in his " Ismailia" mentions the
existence of extensive forests of magnificent tamarind
trees within the equatorial zone near Gondokoro, on the
White Nile, and he mentions that there is one of these
trees about a mile from the station beneath which 1000
cattle might find shade ;f he also speaks strongly of
the value of its fruit to travellers:

" By taking off the shell and pressing the tamarinds into
lumps of about two pounds weight " (he says) " they will keep
in this simple form for many months, and are invaluable in
cases of fever; and (used medicinally as a drink) are cooling when
drunk cold and sudorific when taken hot; if taken in large
quantities they are aperient." §

Among the great trees which we have just men-

* There are also many groves of other trees, as for instance the
Mango (Magnifera Indica) in the Indian plains, which are also very
fine, but not to be compared in size with the great trees here mentioned
as of the first magnitude. The Babul {Acacia Arabica) is another very
fine tree often seen on the Indian plains, which grows rapidly in favour-
able situations and forms a striking object in the landscape.

f Ismailia, by Sir Samuel "W". Baker, 1874, Vol. i, p. 231.

§ Ibid., Vol. ii, p. 557.

RED COTTON TREES. 309

tioned as adorning the Bush Region of the Indian plains,
the Banyan has been already described in our chap-
ter on the equatorial zone: and as regards the Red
Cotton tree (Bombax Malibaricum] we may state that,
according to Balfour, it is very common in the Bombay
Presidency, * and there forms a stately tree, often 80 to
100 feet in height to the first bough, in favourable
situations. When large it has buttress roots, and the
trunk is covered with sharp spines. It sheds its
leaves in spring, and the leafless branches are then
seen covered with a mass of large scarlet flowers,
shaped like those of the magnolia. At this time it
therefore forms a most striking object in the landscape,
and after flowering it produces great pods of a substance
like white cotton, which blows all over the surround-
ing country like dandelion-down at home; but it is
only useful for stuffing cushions and other common
purposes. The geographical range of this tree is very
great, and it may be regarded as a habitant of almost
the whole extent of the tropical zones. And last but not
least, the Bo-tree (Ficus Religiose^, already mentioned,
which is called the Peepul all over India, resembles a
gigantic poplar in habit and foliage; its leaves also
rustle in the wind like those of an aspen. It too has
a wide geographical range of growth, and like the
Red Cotton tree it is seen from Ceylon, all overHin-
dostan as far as Peshawar on the Afghan frontier. It
therefore stands cold weather perfectly, indeed some
of the finest specimens we have seen were growing
on the banks of the Ravi, near Lahore. In the gardens
of the Taj, at Agra, the visitor may also see this tree

* Cyclopedia of India, by Surgeon-General Edward Balfour, 3rd
edit., 1885, Vol. i, p. 407.

310 PARRICIDE TREES.

in its character of " parricide" ; that is to say, where
a seed of the Peepul has lodged in the fork of another
tree, has there germinated, and cast down long air-
roots which run down the parent trunk; reaching the
ground they take root, and the Peepul is then seen in
the process of squeezing the parent tree to death, as
a boa constrictor is said to strangle an animal enfolded
in its coils. When this has been effected, we have
seen several cases where the Peepul remains standing
aloft a magnificent tree, with a hollow cylinder in its
heart marking the form of the original tree, which
once occupied that situation, but whose dead trunk
has long since turned to dust, upon which the more
vigorous parricidal growth has fed and nourished.

Elsewhere we have described the seeds of this remark-
able tree as effecting the destruction of buildings and
other works of man. The visitor will see many ex-
amples of its power in this respect, throughout the
Bush Region, among the ruins of any of the ancient
cities of India, as well as in the equatorial zone, where
the action of this tree has been already discussed in
that capacity.

Passing however from the region of the larger ar-
borescent growths, we must turn our attention to the
smaller growths of the dry bush-covered plains, which
adjoin our next division, the Desert Zone. The class
of trees and plants here found existing are mainly
formed by Nature to be essentially drought-resisting.
There are many wide areas of country, which are
fertile and well-watered during portions of the year,
but completely waterless at other seasons. The great
Kalahari Desert in South Africa is a notable instance
in point. This enormous territory contains a large area

DESERT REGIONS AFTER RAIN. 311

of admirable pasture land, and a good deal of heavy
bush country, but it is subject to this fatal defect, that
during the long dry season its pools dry up and it
becomes perfectly waterless; even the game animals,
excepting a few well-known kinds, who manage to
exist on the sap of plants, being compelled to abandon
the district till the return of the rains. A good many
cases have occurred where unwary travellers, who had
allowed themselves to get caught by the drought, have
perished in this great "thirst land," while the sufferings
undergone by others, who eventually succeeded in
escaping, have been extraordinary. These casualties
moreover seem to be even more common in these oc-
casionally well-watered and fertile districts, than in the
absolutely sterile regions of the Desert Zone.

Mr. A. H. Bryden in describing the Kalahari, which
we have selected as a good typical example of this
description of territory, says—

" During the brief weeks of rainfall no land can assume a
fairer or more tempting aspect the long grass standing
succulent, and elbow-deep; flowers spangle the Veldt in
every direction ; the giraffe acacia forests, robed in fresh dark
green, reminding one of nothing so much as an English
deerpark; the bushes blossom and flourish; the air is full of
fragrance ; and pans of water lie upon every hand. Another
month and all is drought : the pans are dry again ; the grasses
are turning to their winter yellow, and travel is full of diffi-
culty." *

In the above paragraph the treacherous nature of this
class of country is well portrayed, and it must be

* Gun and Camera in Soiith Africa, by H. A. Bryden, 1893, p. 141.

[The Acacia giraffe here spoken of, is merely a variety of the well-
known, and widely distributed Acacia Arabica, which we have noticed
on p. 307 as being known in India under the Hindi name Babul].

312 DRYING UP OF DESERT POOLS.

evident how easily a traveller trekking with waggons
across such a territory, might be overtaken by the
drought; although the fine tree vegetation of entire
districts tells us in silent, but almost unmistakable
terms, that though the surface waters may have disap-
peared, stores of the precious fluid still exist not far
beneath. Such in fact, has actually been proved to be
the case in many parts of the Kalahari ; for where water
has been intelligently sought for, and wells sunk during
the fertile season, an abundant and, we believe, never
failing supply has been found in several places at a
very moderate depth ; so much so, that there is a very
general expectation that the day is not for distant
wThen many parts of this redoubtable " desert " will be
inhabited by stock farmers, whose wants will be sup-
plied by wells, assisted, in all probability, by the con-
struction of reservoirs. In many dry, so-called deserts
in Australia this has already heen effected, and we
have been informed that some of the finest sheep runs
are now situated in such localities, that is, where
surface water was formerly entirely absent for a con-
siderable portion of the year.

It is a fortunate, and indeed a wonderful dispensa-
tion of Nature, that cattle and other stock bred on dry
plains can go without water, in a way that would be
deemed impossible in more favoured lands. For
instance in the regular deserts of Northern Africa,
Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, a great French authority
on such matters (who had immense experience of
desert travelling and the habits and customs of the
desert tribes), assures us that it was the regular custom
of the desert Arabs not to give their animals daily
drink, but " to take the sheep every second day to

KAROO CATTLE. 313

the wells ; the cattle every third day, and the camels
every fourth day." * In the very hottest and driest
weather, however, they water them somewhat oftener,
" while during winter, they go more rarely, and from
the commencement of the rains it is no longer needful
for them to be taken there." f

In South Africa also, the cattle reared by certain
Kaffir tribes inhabiting dry Karoos, are said not to
require water more than once in two days, at any
time: whereas cattle bred in well-\vatered districts of
the temperate zone, seem to require water at least
twice a day — or say morning and evening. It is also
certain that in some of the Karoo districts cattle and
especially sheep and goats, can live upon the succulent
Karoo bush for considerable periods without drinking;
these dwarf tufts of bush, notwithstanding their dry
and uninviting appearance, being so full of sap, that
they seem to take the place of the Swedish Turnip
on English farms for stock feeding; but when these
succulent plants begin to wither of course it will ne-
cessitate the cattle at all events, being removed to
places where there is water, and probably the sheep also.

Mr. H. A. Bryden, a member of the South African
Committee, writing on this subject says: —

" The Karoo vegetation despite its parched-up appearance
is so succulent that the flocks can without inconvenience do
without water. It may be astounding to the uninitiated to
learn that in South Africa, of all places in the world, animals
can live and thrive, for long months, upon pasture absolutely
waterless: yet such is the case." §

* Le Desert et Ic Soudan, par le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853, pp. 286 — 7 (translated from the French),
f Ibid., p. 28:.
§ Kloof and Karoo , by H. A. Bryden.

314 TREK OXEN CROSSING THE THIRST LANDS.

Sheep, goat, and ostrich farming we ought to say,
is here principally alluded to. There can be no doubt
that the great curse of South Africa is want of \vater,
and the heavy and serious losses of stock, occasioned
to farmers in those countries by drought, is unfor-
tunately but too notorious, notwithstanding all the
precautions that can be taken in shifting them and
providing permanent watering places. Oxen however,
can subsist, in case of need, for what to us would seem
surprising periods without drink, even under the strain
of constant work. Nearly every African traveller has
his own tale to tell of experiences he has had to un-
dergo in this respect, and two or three days of almost
constant marching, has undoubtedly frequently been
done in the thirst districts, without water, and with
comparatively little loss, provided the animals get a
good rest, and plenty of water after it. Even four
days has been done. Mr. Bryden for instance, a
recent authority on such matters, assures us that dur-
ing his journey across the Kalahari desert — "although
we had two days and nights without water, and in
the middle of the desert, two days and three nights,
and three and four nights without a drop of water
for the cattle, we only lost one ox: our oxen were,
however, terribly enfeebled. " * A trader who followed
in the rear of Mr. Bryden's party, however, is stated
to have lost " many oxen from thirst and exhaustion. " f
But herbage was at the same time always plentiful,
for throughout these dreary and waterless wastes
almost everywhere, according to Mr. Bryden, grass is

* Across the Kalahari Desert to the Botletli River, N'Gamiland,
by H. A. Bryden in Longman's Magazine for Sept. 1891, p. 524«
f Ibid., p. 523.

TREES INDICATIVE OF WATER IN THE SUBSOIL. 315

good, and capable of supporting cattle, if only water
could be found. This constant permanence of good
grass, and especially of fine timber — which we have
been assured by an ex-trooper of the Bechuanaland
Border Police, who had been all over this country,
is to be found in many places, in what is called the
Kalahari desert — is however of itself as we have said,
in our opinion, an almost certain indication of water
at no great depth below; the deeply penetrating root
fibres of these desert trees and grasses being undoub-
tedly nourished by the evaporation of water, exhaled
through the soil, which thus, where all is otherwise
dead, still preserves the verdant charm of Nature over
large districts of apparently waterless country, thus
almost recalling the well-known apostrophe of Romeo
over the inanimate form of Juliet, whose features still
appeared overspread with the bloom of youthful life
and loveliness —

"Death that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there." *

As regards the penetrating power of roots it is worth
observing that on the borders of rivers, where the
stream has undermined the banks and caused falls of
earth, we may in fact constantly see for ourselves
how very far down these fibres will sometimes
penetrate into the ground in search of the life-
giving fluid. This peculiarity may be said to be
common to almost the whole of the arborescent vege-

* Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. iii.

316 ESPARTO GRASS.

tation of very dry countries, where drought is constant
for the greater pare of every year. So also with
some of the grasses ; they will thus penetrate the
soil of such localities to extraordinary depths with
hair-like rootlets, resembling delicate threads. The
desert Haifa, or Esparto grass (Stipa Tenacissima)
for instance, will do so; so also in our own country,
will the well-known " bent" or pea-reed grass (Arundo
Arcnarid] which grows on pure sand dunes near the
sea- side. There really seems no practical limit to which
we can say this grass, and another, Elymus Arenarius,
usually found with it, will not penetrate through sand.
The extraordinary depths to which it can sometimes
be seen to do so where falls have occurred in sand cliffs,
almost exceed belief.

Mr. Doughty, an English traveller, who had years
of experience of desert life among the wild Bedouin
tribes of Arabic deserts, has come to conclusions
identical with our own in the matter of tree life
in very dry regions, in connection with the existence
of subterraneous stores of wate:\ These opinions he
probably formed from information acquired among the
Arabs, who are keen observers of Nature. " Every-
where," he says, "we see some growth of Acacias,
signs doubtless of groundwater, not far under " *

We have gone at some length into these matters,
because of what we conceive to be the great importance
of coming to a right understanding about such questions
in our South African and Australian colonies. At the
same time the necessity of caution in venturing into
thirst lands is so evident, that we make no apology

* Arabia Deserta, by Charles 'M. Doughty, 1882, Vol. ii, p. 462.

DESERT ANIMALS AND WATER. 317

for concluding* this branch of our subject by a further
quotation from the pen of Mr. Bryden.

" Although in the last few years " (he says) " travellers and
hunters have crossed the Kalahari, and wandered hither and
thither, very little is known of the country, even in adjacent
South Africa. — The spaces are so immense, the surface waters
so scant, and the danger of death by thirst and starvation
so imminent : that extreme caution has to be exercised. —
Let no man, unless he wishes to leave his bones in some
dreary waste, or lone forest, attempt to exploit the Kalahari,
without the best of guides, and the advice and good offices
of local chiefs." *

In most of these dry regions, where the waters be-
come exhausted during the period of the droughts,
there are generally remote pools and fountains among
the hills where permanent water exists, which are
known only to the native residents, who have discov-
ered them in the course of their wanderings, by watch-
ing the movements of game animals and birds, which
are known to require to drink daily; wiiere these crea-
tures are to be met with, it may of course be taken
as a certain indication that the means of quenching
their thirst are to be found within comparatively mod-
erate distances. Water can also frequently be discov-
ered by following the recent trails or paths of such
animals, which will frequently lead the traveller directly
to springs and other sources of water-supply, which
would otherwise certainly be overlooked.

It requires an experienced eye and a good judge,
however, to tell the exact age of the tracks; for it is
obvious that an old trail may lead the traveller on a
bootless errand to water pools which have already

* Gun and Camera in South Africa^ by H. A. Brvden, 1893,
p. 144.

3l8 DESERT HILL GRASS.

become dry. Sometimes, however, by sinking a hole
in the beds of these places, a certain quantity of
water may still be found — sufficient perhaps to suffice
for immediate wants.

But as regards the critical operation of seeking for,
and finding water on these occasions, the various ex-
pedients that have been resorted to by travellers would
occupy too much space to enable us to do justice to such
a subject here.

Leaving therefore the question of the water-supply,
let us confine our attention to the vegetation in these
districts, when they have become, it may be, almost
waterless, until the return of the rains.

It is remarkable, that except in barren tracts of
actual desert, throughout the Bush Country proper,
there are usually at all times, fair, and often ample
resources, in the way of dried grasses, for pasturage
purposes: long grass in the fertile and low-lying dis-
tricts ; and short grass upon the high plains and barren
lands. The herbage of these latter very generally
consists of grasses containing much nourishment in
small bulk, and possessing qualities which render them,
though they may be coarse in appearance, invaluable as
forage plants. So that travellers whose cattle may have
suffered materially in condition while crossing the
barren sandy tracts, usually find their animals rapidly
pick up flesh when they enter the bush region, if only
water can be found.

The whole experience of the Australians goes to
prove the accuracy of this view ; large areas of country
long regarded as " irreclaimable desert " having been
already converted into highly profitable cattle ranges,
in different parts of Australia, by the simple expedient

FAT GAME IN WATERLESS DESERTS. 319

of constructing reservoirs for the water which falls in
ample abundance during the rainy season. And
moreover experience shows that the constant pre-
sence of large herds of cattle upon the ground, and
the ceaseless tread of their myriad hoofs, brings
about a sure, though gradual change in the land, by
causing the soil to become firm and hard, whilst fresh
growths of valuable grasses follow the footsteps of the
invading herds. * These are remarkable facts, strongly
confirmed by the curious circumstance that many of the
game animals inhabiting " the thirsts, " or waterless
districts, of the Kalahari, are generally found to be
fat, and in excellent condition, when shot. — Mr. A. H.
Bryden, in an article in Longman's Magazine, makes
special mention of this fact, and states that " All the
game of this region thrive even to fatness: elands,
gemsboks, giraifes, the duiker and tiny steinbok, all
flourish. A giraffe shot in a quite waterless country
was fat, and elands shot in the very heart of the
'thirst-lands,' were all in magnificent condition, quite
equal to well-fed cattle, which in bulk and appearance
they somewhat resemble, true antelopes though they
are." f These facts are confirmed by the observations
of many old hunters and travellers.

There are certain game animals, such as those just
mentioned, which can subsist for long periods upon
herbage only, provided it is juicy and succulent, or
even upon dry grass, if dew falls in reasonable abun-
dance. Now it is remarkable that it is exactly in these

* See The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888,
compiled from State documents by Ernest Favenac, Sydney, 1889,
pp. 40 and 41.

y Through the Kalahari Desert to the Botletli River, ft'Gamiland,
by A. H. Bryden, in Longman's Magazine for Sept. 1891.

320 SUCCULENT KAROO VEGETATION.

dry regions that the vegetation is of a peculiarly
succulent character: the stoiing up of juices in its
fibres being doubtless an effort of Nature to enable
these plants and herbs to resist the long and trying
droughts. Without some provision of this kind, the
great probabilities are that they would dry up and
finally perish ; but as we shall show in its proper place,
in our following chapter, the true deserts themselves
are generally full of succulent bulbs and dwarf fleshy-
leafed bushes, which supply the place of water wher-
ever there is vegetation, and so certain animals are
enabled to maintain existence in districts entirely
deprived of surface water. The vegetation of the
South African Karroos is full of instances of this kind.

But this peculiar organization among certain animals,
enabling them to do without drinking under such cir-
cumstances, is by no means entirely confined to dry
regions, though there, of course, the most remarkable
instances of it are found. In our own country, as we
know, the rabbit will do in fields where it cannot get
to water; and the mouse in houses and other dry
places, where not even green food is obtainable. So
also sheep upon most English farm lands, if in good
health, rarely require to drink water ; the dewy succu-
lent meadow grass is quite sufficient for them. In
dry countries like South Africa and Australia, however,
where the herbage becomes desiccated, all animals require
to visit the water springs regularly.

There are, as we know, many animals, like the horse
for instance, that require water at least twice in the
twenty-four hours. So also among game animals there
are certain species which are never found far from
water; when therefore the streams begin to dry up,

HERDS OF GAME ON THE CHOBE. 321

in certain sections of country, these animals fly before
the drought, and migrate to well-watered districts, or
collect upon the banks of large rivers whose sources
are perennial. The Chobe and the Zambesi in South
Africa, are instances in point: these, and other great
waters being visited, at certain seasons of the year,
by countless thousands of game animals, driven thither
by thirst from the waterless plains. The hippopotamus,
of course, being an aquatic animal, never quits the
immediate vicinity of water. The rhinoceros also
requires to drink daily, and never strays far into
waterless tracts. So also, according to Dr. Livingstone,
the zebra, the pallah, and the buffalo, are never found
any great distance from water; and the spoor of all
these animals, freshly made, may be accepted as certain
evidence that water is not far off. Again, the same
high authority remarks that when, amidst the solemn
stillness of the woods, the singing of joyous birds
falls upon the ear, it is certain that water is close at
hand. * Blessed therefore to the traveller's ear are
these musical sounds in a thirsty land.

Similar evidence is afforded by watching the con-
verging flights of birds as they pass towards evening
in the direction of their drinking places. Mr. Gordon
Gumming, the great African hunter, for instance, saved
his expedition from a disastrous retreat by noting the
flight of birds. His cattle were perishing from thirst,
and treacherous guides were urging him to go back,
because the country in front, which they did not want
him to see, was, they asserted, a wide waste of water-
less desert, which no man had ever been through ; but

* The Zambesi and Its Tributaries, and the Discovery of Lakes
Shirwa and Nyassa, by David and Charles Livingstone, 1865, pp. 207 — 8.

VOL. I. 21

322 FLIGHTS OF BIRDS INDICATIVE OF WATER.

the sagacious hunter was too thoroughly skilled in
the signs of the wilderness, to be taken in by such
alarmist rumours, and insisted on continuing his march,
and on riding in the direction from whence the return-
ing flights had come, he soon found a pool of excellent
water, sufficient for all his wants. * This anecdote
speaks volumes as to the high importance of travellers
through wild countries observing the habits and charac-
teristics of the birds and animals, and becoming close
students of Natural History. Nor is careful observation
of the vegetable productions of a district one whit
less important, for they too furnish irrefragable evidence
as to the climate, the nature of the soil, and the whole
character of the country generally.

In Australia, for instance, there are certain sorts of
grasses that are never found except in waterless districts ;
of these the prickly Spinifex (Triodia Irritans)
is a good example; the early explorers all remarked
that wherever much of this grass was found growing,
the district was sure to be dry, and often wholly
bereft of water. Other herbs indicate that the soil is
salinous, and that water, should it exist, is salt or
brackish, and so on: we might write quite a chapter
upon such matters only, f

It is also a most remarkable, but still a certain fact, that
vast herds of game, as a rule, are found only in regions
possessed of a scanty vegetation, such as we have
been here describing; and that the great game countries

* See Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of
South Africa (1843 to 1848), by Roualeyn Gordon Gumming of Altyre,
2nd Edit. 1850, pp. 288 to 290.

y See among other evidence the Journal of Colonel Warburton,
the Australian Explorer, pp. 156 — 7; also Stanford's Compendhtm of
Geography and Travel for Australia, edited by Alfred R. Wallace,
1879, P- 21.

GREAT HERDS OF GAME ON BARREN PLAINS. 323

of the world are mostly dry, barren, inhospitable plains.
It is in such localities that almost all the heavy game
quadrupeds have their home. The popular idea, that
large animals require luxuriant pasturage is, according
to the high authority of Mr. Darwin, entirely falla-
cious. The reasons why these things should be so
would involve the consideration of a host of technicalities,
which will be discussed in their proper place, in our
"sporting" sections. *

Almost the whole of this class of country, however,
in the dry season, in consequence of the drought,
assumes a peculiar yellowish brown tint, so far as the
grass is concerned, which is reduced to the condition
of a species of natural hay ; whilst the twigs and bark
of the withered, stunted bush are everywhere pervaded
by an equally peculiar sombre shade of dusky dun,
or ashen colour. In East Central Africa there are
many thousands of square miles of this class of country :
" of " (according to Professor Drummond) " vast thin
forest, shadeless, trackless, voiceless — forest in mountain,
and forest in plain — this " (he says) " is East Central
Africa." f There are vast areas of similar land in
South Africa also.

Hence we find that Nature has in many cases
closely assimilated the colour of the hides of animals
and the plumage of birds, to match the peculiar dull,
dusky hue of the surrounding bush. The elephant,
the rhinoceros, the Indian and African buffalo, the
wild boar, etc., furnish good examples of this species

* See our chapters on Hunting and Stalking on Plains, and Forest
and Jungle Shooting in vol. iii.

f Tropical Africa, by Professor Henry Drummond, 1888, p. 53.
N.B. — This country almost all lies 3000 to 5000 feet above the sea
level, which accounts for the absence of heavy forest.

324 PROTECTIVE COLOURING OF ANIMALS.

of protective colouring. The colour of an elephant's
skin, for instance, harmonizes so wonderfully with
it, that though to the uninitiated the fact might
appear almost incredible, those immense quadrupeds
are often entirely invisible, even to an experienced
eye, when standing motionless among the bush, close
to the observer. This motionless attitude is a habit
peculiar to nearly all game animals whose haunts are
among trees; when listening to the approach of a
suspected enemy, or an intruder upon their wild
domains.

Then again, there is another, the " striped" form of
animal colouring; this we find strongly marked in
the Bengal tiger, the striped hyaena, the zebra, and
the giraffe. Seen in a gallery of natural history, the
skins of these animals would appear to be of so "loud"
a pattern, that one would naturally suppose they would
be instantly seen, at any reasonable distance. But in
reality it is not so — instances have been known of
travellers surrounded by herds of the two latter species
of these creatures, who still thought themselves alone,
amidst the silent desolation of the wilderness; and it
was not until they moved that the deception became
apparent, as the startled game bounded off and vanished
into the bush. * The striped skins of these animals,
so long as they remain perfectly motionless, appear
in their natural haunts to have exactly the effect of
rays of light cast by the sun through the intertwin-
ing twigs and branches of the surrounding covert.
Further details with respect to these and other similar
matters, which we trust may prove both interesting

* See for example an incident recorded by Professor Henry Drummond
in his Tropical Africa, 1888, p. 167.

STRIPED FORM OF PROTECTIVE COLOURING. 325

and instructive, will be found in the section on " Forest
and Jungle Shooting."

This curious question of protective colouring is one
which has long occupied the attention of naturalists,
and other scientific observers, and numerous remarkable
examples of it might be cited, especially with reference
to our next section, The Desert Zone, and above
all in connection with The Arctic Zone. The
wonderful examples of Albinism or snow-coloured
robing, that may be witnessed in the Polar regions,
present probably the most perfect examples of Na-
ture's marvellous power of adaptation in this respect:
and to all those of our English readers who are in
any wise interested in such questions, we would
strongly recommend a visit to the entrance hall of the
museum of Natural History at South Kensington, in
London, where several glass cases are exhibited, showing
quite a number of examples of the most striking
forms of protective colouring, both of the snow (or
Arctic) and of the sand (or desert) coloured types, a-
mong birds and the smaller quadrupeds.

As this is a matter which we purpose to refer to
again in greater detail elsewhere, * we shall therefore
pass on to consider certain points in the predominant
colourings of landscapes, concerning which we should like
to say a few words.

Most countries, if we think of it for a moment, will
have graven themselves upon the tablets of our memory
by some particular shade or tint which prevails through-
out the colourings of their landscapes, in a way that
is special to that particular country, and which we do
not find prevailing in any other country; and we can

* See our section on " The Arctic Zone. "

326 THE COLOURINGS OF LANDSCAPES.

have no doubt that much of that love of country,
which is so strongly marked a characteristic among
all sections of the human family, and the existence of
that national spirit of patriotism which preserves the
autonomy of states, is largely due to an unconscious
predilection for certain types of form and colour, pre-
valent in our native land, with which our earliest re-
collections have been associated. Thus the Scotchman
longs for the purple tints of his heather-clad hills;
the Swiss and the Norwegian for their pine-covered
mountain slopes; even the Esquimaux loves his snowy
wastes and the frozen glory of the arctic night. Many
might suppose that the love of family, or of friends,
is the chief attraction: but our colonials often take
their families with them, or marry and form a family
in the colony; in either case the family tie would
thus seem to bind them closer to the colony than to
the Fatherland, where after a lapse of years a man
becomes forgotten, the friends of his youth being
mostly scattered or dead. Yet, however long his
absence, every British colonist longs, if he can, at
least to revisit the land of his birth. It is the country
therefore, which changes not, rather than the people,
who do change, that is the true magnet that attracts.
We have, moreover, been, on several occasions, profoundly
struck by observing the affection felt towards the old
country (the " Mother of Nations, " as they call her) by
colonials born and brought up in the colonies, who
have arrived, it may be, at old age, before being able
to visit the Mother land ; yet we have seen such persons,
when landing upon her shores, quite as visibly moved
as any of those who as young men and women quitted
the homes of their childhood in search of fortune.

COLONIALS AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY. 327

Here then, clearly, the sentiment was that of attachment
to the " old country, " and not to family or friends, for
they came as strangers to a strange land.

No one who has had any considerable acquaintance
with our Colonial Empire can entertain much doubt
on this head. The axiom " Ubi bene, ibi patria" is
therefore only conditionally true; some races indeed
may be said to carry this " home sickness" even to a
fault, and never make good colonists in consequence.
To avoid exciting European susceptibilities, however,
let us select the Chinese, -as a striking instance in
point. No matter where John Chinaman may go, he is
merely a migratory bird of passage; notwithstanding
the grinding tyranny of his Mandarins, and however
well off he may find himself abroad, he almost always
looks forward to the day, when having acquired a
sufficient fortune to maintain the level of his aspirations
at home, he can carry back his savings to China.

His attachment to China does not even cease with
his death, for it is part of his religious belief that
wherever he may happen to die, his bones at least
must go back for final interment in China. This
fanatical longing for home, pushes almost to an
absurdity the beautiful sentiment of the ancient classic :
" Coelum non animam, mutant, qui trans mare
currunt" * or again, as it has been as strikingly said,
in somewhat different terms, by a celebrated French
writer, " C'est lorsque nous sommes eloignes de notre
pays, que nous sentons I' instinct qui nous y attache. " f

Returning, however, to the question of the local
colourings of landscapes, it is curious to observe how

* Horace " Eptstolas" i — ii — 27.
j Chateaubriand.

328 CAUSES OF COLOURINGS OF LANDSCAPES.

even a very small change of climate and locality will
affect them. Three causes seem mainly to govern
the character of a landscape: (i) conditions of soil
and aspect; (2) Elevation; (3) Latitude. But we shall
merely touch upon the leading features of this question
in the briefest possible manner. How different one
plot of land may be to an adjoining one is well known ;
but it is not to these small differences that we desire
to call attention, but to those great progressive changes
produced by Nature over extensive areas. Each of
the terrestrial zones, for instance, has its separate and
characteristic colourings; most of them are even sub-
divided into subordinate zones, which differ materially
from each other, and these variations in the pre-
dominant colour of the landscape seem to entail a more
or less considerable corresponding change in the dresses
of its fauna. In the equatorial forest zone for example,
where the prevailing tint is a dark evergreen, many
of the birds which inhabit the sun-lit tree-tops, are
green, as in many of the parrot tribe; on the other
hand the beasts which live beneath their gloomy
shades, are mostly of a dusky brown, or tawny yellow,
to match with the colours of the tree trunks, or of
the jungle reeds. Then in the tropical and sub-
tropical regions of the bush country, where the forest is
more open, and the solar glare of greater intensity,
because of the comparative absence of cloud, we meet
with the striped form seen in the zebra, the giraffe,
the tiger, etc. ; and on coming to its drier regions, and
to the actual desert, the sand colour gradually appears
more and more, until in the desert proper, it prevails
almost exclusively. Even among domestic animals
these differences of colour, varying according to country,

SAND COLOURINGS. 329

are still maintained. In Europe, it might be supposed
that this was the result of human interference: but
this cannot be so to any marked degree, for it is not
to colour that the breeder generally looks, but to en-
tirely different qualities; yet these different types of
colour still prevail.

For instance, though England and France are al-
most adjoining countries, the colours of French cattle
differ in a marked degree from those of our English
breeds; the appearance of the Swiss, or the Spanish
cattle, differs again considerably from either, both in
colour, and even in other physical peculiarities. In
the London cattle markets therefore, where specimens
of almost all the continental cattle are constantly seen,
an experienced English dealer can tell at once, when
he sees a beast before him, where it comes from.

We have, however, mentioned these variations in the
types of domestic cattle merely because they exemplify
in a high degree these local peculiarities which run
through pretty well all the natural productions of the
great terrestrial zones.

Now, the Bush Region is a country famous above
all others for the great number and variety of its wild
quadrupeds ; many of which, in Africa more especially,
are varieties peculiar to themselves, which do not occur
elsewhere. The great size and weight of many of
these animals also justly entitle them to take rank as
the most magnificent specimens of wild game which
the world contains. Some of the larger African ante-
lopes, for instance, attain proportions almost approach-
ing those of prize cattle, with which none of the
antelope tribe elsewhere will at all bear comparison.
Then as regards physical developments of shape, one

330 AFRICAN HEAVY GAME ANIMALS.

of the peculiarities noticeable among them, is the apparent
disproportion in height between their fore and hind
quarters. Some of these African game animals stand
so much higher at the shoulder than they do behind,
that their general appearance exhibits a striking pecu-
liarity, entirely special to themselves. We may men-
tion the giraffe (Camelopardalis Giraffd) and the harte-
beest (Alcelaphus Caama), as leading examples of this
type. In the case of the giraffe, however, it is pro-
bable that this exceeding peculiarity of bodily shape
has in the course of ages been attained, on account
of this animal being a tree-feeder, and constantly in
the habit of reaching up to great heights, to browse
upon the twigs and foliage of branches above its head.
It is evident that its immensely long neck, and apparently
disproportionately high fore-quarters, would thus be-
come of great assistance in enabling the animal to
obtain its food in this manner: which a full-grown
giraffe could easily do at heights of at least twenty
feet above the ground.*

The giraffe almost always frequents extensive tracts
of dry bush forest, where ancient trees of nobler growth
rise at intervals above the general level of the thorny
scrub. All evidence goes to show that on account of
the wonderful way in which the colours of their hides
match the tints of the surrounding jungle, and the
columnar appearance of their immensely long necks,
which are easily mistaken for the trunks of dead trees,
giraffes are often extremely difficult to catch sight of,
when standing motionless among the bush ; while their
great height enables them to detect the approach of

* The measured heights for large male giraffes vary from eighteen
to nineteen feet, when standing in their natural position.

GIRAFFES. 331

enemies at a long distance off, as they can see right
over a great many of the dwarf tree growths.

It would be easy to fill pages with technical details,
as to the special peculiarities of the African game
animals: such as the spiral horns, the curiously striped
coats, or variegated colours of the various antelopes,
which inhabit certain sections of the bush country ;
but these matters have been already described in many
books of sport and travel.

The antelope tribe, of course, as a rule avoid the
neighbourhood of heavy bush, and keep to the opener
sections of the grassy plains. This instinct is common
to all the varieties of antelopes. But the larger quad-
rupeds and animals of the deer tribe, on the con-
trary, cling to the thickets, to which they always
retire during the heat of the day, or at least seek
the shade of umbrageous trees which shelter them
from the sun. The elephant and the buffalo, for in-
stance, are sure to be found where trees grow most
densely, and it is noticeable that those creatures have,
as we have pointed out, dusky dun hides, which
assimilate perfectly with the leafless bush: so that
they too, when not in motion, are most difficult to
catch sight of, on account of their protective colourings.

It is not, however, as game animals, or from a
sporting point of view, that we desire just now to
present these African mammalia to the notice of our
readers. — Africa is a country full of wonders: all its
productions seem marked by special peculiarities, distinct
from anything of the kind met with elsewhere.

Why should this be? It is probably due to the
fact that it is the most ancient of all existing con-
tinents. Distinct races and forms of life, therefore,

332 PRIMEVAL AFRICAN MAMMALIA.

appear there, which no longer exist in any of the
more recently formed territories. The fact of by far
the greater portion of Africa being situated within the
tropics, tends to render the survival of primeval races
there more probable than if such were not the case;
because the extinction of species seems more frequently
to be brought about by cold, than by any other agency.
Such, at all events, was the opinion of Professor
Agassiz, the well-known naturalist, who seems to have
been the first to recognize this probability * — a doctrine
at present adopted by the majority of scientific men.
Mr. Wallace, for instance, thinks that we can hardly
fail to be right in attributing the wonderful changes
in animal and vegetable life that have occurred in
Europe and North America, to the intervention of two
or more glacial epochs, which he believes led to " the
extinction of a whole host of the higher animal forms"
and extensive variations in the vegetation of these
continents, f The fatal effects of cold upon the human
race, and its effects in raising the bills of mortality
at the present day, are well known, and we shall
have more to say upon this head elsewhere in these
pages.

From whatever causes, however, it may proceed, there
seem to be good grounds for believing that the zone of
territory representing " The Great Bush Region" upon
the African continent is at this moment the home of
the oldest of all surviving types of animal life: and,
consequently, most probably of vegetable life also.
The celebrated German traveller and learned naturalist

* See Island Life, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1880, Part i., Chapt. x,

p. 222.

f See Ibid., p. 119.

SURVIVAL OF PRIMEVAL ANIMAL TYPES. 333

Emin Pasha,* in his Letters from Central Africa, thus
expresses himself with respect to the fauna of that
continent, which he says — " occupies a most exceptional
position, as regards antiquity, geological antiquity I
might say, compared with the existing types of later
date; and indeed the camelopard, hippopotamus, Cape
ant-eater, and others, belonging to a period of creation
long passed away, intrude as anomalies in our times." f
The hippopotamus, as we know, is at present
exclusively confined to the warm waters of the great
river systems of Africa; here it flourishes, but outside
the tropics it is an exotic. Nevertheless — just to show
what changes time has produced upon the face of our
earth, both in climates and in the fauna of countries —
there was a period when the elephant and the hippopo-
tamus were common in Britain: entire skeletons of
these animals having been found in a bed of dark
blue clay at Leeds, while further North, at Kirkdale
Cave, in Lat. 54° 15' N., remains of the hippopotamus
occur abundantly, along with those of the ox, elephant,
horse, and other quadrupeds, including vast collections
of remains of the hyaenas which devoured them. §
This, of course, points with almost conclusive force to
the fact that the climate of Yorkshire was then tropical
in its temperature, while the great game of the African
bush region disported themselves upon its wild primeval

* This was his Arab title. His real name and designation was
Dr. Eduard Schnitzer. "Emin" in Turkish- Arabic means " The
Faithful One." His intention was to practise as a Turkish physician,
and by adopting this title "El Hakim, Emin Effendi" he hoped to
avoid the prejudice felt against a Frankish practitioner.

f Emin Pasha's Letters from Central Africa, collected by Professor
Schweinfurth and others; translated from the German by Mr. R. W.
Filkin, 1888, p. 591.

§ See Island Life, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1880, p. 114.

334 GREAT BRITAIN WITH A TROPICAL CLIMATE.

surface. But even assuming that there may have been
varieties of these animals which inhabited colder
countries, all doubt as to the prevalence of a tropical
climate in Great Britain, at an earlier era, is set at
rest, by the finding of innumerable tropical ferns,
palm leaves, and other remains of heat-loving plants,
in the coal measures of the great Northern coal
field. This makes good what we have said about
vegetation being conclusive as to the climate of a
country.

Reverting, however, to the question respecting the
animals, stated on the high authority of Emin Pasha to
have descended to our times as relicts from a vast
antiquity — everywhere, as Mr. Wallace observes, the
animals which have most recently become extinct,
resemble more or less closely those now living in the
same country.* Now, in the case of the giraffe or
camelopard, we have an animal unique in type, all
its congeners having passed away. The same may be
said with reference to the hippopotamus. Neither
resemble any other species of animals at present surviving
in the African continent, or elsewhere.

These animals, in fact, are so entirely different from
any of the quadrupeds at present existing in any other
part of the world, that they represent to us, what
undoubtedly seem to be the surviving types of a past
age, when the earth was peopled with the extinct
monsters of primeval times. Among these, numerous
species of elephants and rhinoceri are known to have
existed ; of these the Mammoth (Elephas Primogenius)
and the Mastodon (Mastodon Var., Sp.) were probably
the most prominent representatives. They were im-

* See Island Life, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1880, p. 100.

EXTINCT MAMMOTHS. 335

mense beasts; the mastodon had long straight tusks,
directed forwards instead of downwards as in the present
elephants; and the mammoth enormous tusks which
curled upwards. Large numbers of these animals,
especially of the latter species, have been found embedded
in the ice in arctic Siberia and other places, in a
perfect state of preservation, the hair and skin which
still existed unchanged showing that they were very
much like the modern elephant in colour. *

The Encyclopaedia Britannica gives a list of 22
species of mammoths, f and at least two kinds of
Rhinoceri (Rhinocerus Merekii, and R. Antiquitatis]
were found embedded in the ice near the Lena River,
which according to Professor Nordenskiold, " may
have lived hundreds of thousands, or even millions of
years ago. " § The probabilities are that the era when
these creatures flourished, may certainly be measured
by millions of years; as regards the Mastodon, for in-
stance, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says, " The range
of the genus Mastodon, in time" (that is geological
time) "was from the middle of the Miocene period to
the end of the Pliocene, when they became extinct;" **
that would most assuredly relegate them back millions
of years, beyond the commencement of historic time.
When we speak of geological time, we must be
understood to refer to ages whose remoteness must
almost always be measured in millions, rather than in
thousands of years. Even man himself, a modern

* See our Arctic section with reference to these and other extinct
monsters.

j EncycL Brit. Vol. xv., 9th edit., pp. 622-3.

§ Voyage of the Vega, by Professor A. E. Nordenskiold, translated
by Alexander Leslie, 1881, pp. 411-12.

** Encycl. Brit., Vol xv., gth edit., p. 622.

336 GEOLOGICAL TIME.

evolution upon earth, when we speak of him as the
fossil man of geological times, and are asked : How long
ago did he live ? though it must be admitted that nothing
of a definite character is known about him, there is the
reservation, however, to make, that when we put a date to
the time of his advent upon earth, geological discoveries
show that we must allow at least six figures to ex-
press it — but more probably seven : in other words, at
least a million of years.

Now, as regards these stupendous periods of time,
let us consider for one moment what they import: —

" One of the most important results" (says Sir William
Fowler) " of the recent progress of science, and one which it
is very desirable that we should have fully impressed upon
us, is that the living world which we see around us bears
an exceedingly small proportion to the whole series of
animals and vegetables which have inhabited our planet in
past ages."*

The discovery of vast numbers of fossil remains of
different kinds of extinct forms of life, embedded in
the stratified rocks of each of the great continents, may,
we think, be very safely regarded as placing these
facts so clearly in evidence, as to render them practically
indisputable. They afford incontrovertible proof that
the present races of animals and plants were not the
original inhabitants of any part of the world where
they now exist, — " but have appeared as descendants
of a vast ancestry: the latest comers in a majestic
procession, " in which " we ourselves stand heirs of all
the ages." f

* Opening paragraph of Preface to The Creatures of Other Days,
by the Reverend H. W. Hutchinson, 1894, written by Sir "W. H.
Fowler, F.R.S., Director to the National History Museum.

•j- Quotation from the works of Sir Archibald Geikie (Geologist),
printed as part of a motto appearing on reverse of his title page.

THE EARTH'S ANTIQUITY. 337

This question of the earth's antiquity is one which
has agitated the minds of men from a very early
period; and it is remarkable that, as the time rolls on,
and as the results of fresh investigations are added
to the sum of human knowledge, each additional series
of facts collected, seems to oblige us to regard our
earth as older — and yet still older. .

" It is with time intervals measured by hundreds of millions
of years" (says the late Mr. Proctor) " that we have to deal,
in considering our earth's history" — " 200 or 300 million
years only carry us back to a period when the earth was in
a state of development." *

When James Hutton, after many years of travel
and research, made his first public announcement of
what is now spoken of as "The Huttonian Theory,"
as to the earth's immense antiquity, in a communication
to the Royal Society in 1795, his opinions were,
almost as a matter of course, denounced as rank heresy,
subversive of all religion ; and as Lord Playfair has
pointed out, although the announcement was one which
ought to have attracted the notice of everybody, or
of all scientific men at all events, yet such was the force
of prejudice, that many years elapsed before it attracted
any considerable amount of public notice or acceptance.
There has been a great advance therefore in the
education of mankind, when in these days we find
the Huttonian theory accepted, in its principal features,
as a matter of ascertained fact, by almost all persons
possessing a fair education.

It would, however, be obviously out of place to
encumber these pages with a series of technical details,

* Our Place Among Infinities, by Richard A. Proctor (Astronomer),
p. 12.

VOL I. 22

338 THE EVOLUTION OF LIVING CREATURES.

with reference to the great subject of the earth's
antiquity; these will be found fully discussed in all
the leading works of authority on geology. In this
chapter, however, we have spoken of the antiquity of
certain great trees and we shall therefore add a few
words as regards the antiquity of plant life.

Of course it goes without saying that plant life
preceded animal life in point of time; seeing that
animals for the most part live upon products of the
vegetable kingdom, and those that do not live by
preying upon those that do.

That being so, the tree-feeders and other herbivorous
quadrupeds were probably evolved long subsequently
to vegetation, in geological time: in other words,
they first appeared upon the face of nature, it may
be, millions of years afterwards.

And then again, there is reason to believe that a
vast ancestry of the lower forms of organic beings,
preceded by immense periods of time any of the
more highly organized forms of animals such as we
are familiar with. It seems also almost certain that
members of the insect creation were among the earliest
living creatures that came into existence; without
their existence there is reason to believe that vegetable
life must to a great extent have failed, inasmuch
as it is by the visits of insects that many of their
flowers are fertilized. This, however, is a subject that
literally bristles with technicalities, which must be
taken into consideration, in order to weigh the pro-
babilities of what may or may not have taken place.
It is also certain that among the enormous range of the
insect creation there are many species whose eggs
and larvae would be peculiarly fitted to survive the

INSECTS OF THE PRIMEVAL WORLD. 339

numerous difficulties which must have beset all the
earliest forms of life, in earth's primeval days; some
of these can survive exposure to salt water for con-
siderable periods of time; others can exist in an
undeveloped condition for indefinite periods and under
every degree of heat and cold. All sorts of peculiar
combinations of organization are to be found among
the insect creation ; for this among other reasons, it
seems probable that these minute creatures are, some
of them, perhaps among the oldest existing examples
of living organisms. Still, the plant must have preceded
the insect.

The vast variety which the range of plant life exhibits,
must be evident to everybody. However poor the
flora of a country may be, the number of its plants
will foot up to a long list; while the interminable
catalogues of the known varieties probably bear but
a moderate proportion, compared with the whole number
of plants in existence. Yet all these countless forms
of vegetable life were themselves evolved, step by step,
from an infinite series of ancestry, during enormous
periods of time. How long, therefore, shall we suppose
it has taken to originate one single new species of
plant ? All that can be said on this head is, that as a
matter of fact it is exceedingly doubtful, whether within
the whole range of historic time, any instance what-
ever can be given of a single new species which has
been evolved, by the fertility of Nature, during that
epoch, that is capable of perpetuating its own existence
in the wild state. * Professor Sir A. Geikie, for in-

* It is desirable to note the fact that plants artificially improved,
or apparently newly produced under culture, such as cereal grains, garden
fruits, flowers, etc., are mere ephemera, incapable of perpetuating their

340 THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE.

stance, states, as the result of his observations, that :
" within human experience, a few species have become
extinct; but there is no conclusive proof that a single
new species has come into existence; nor are appreci-
able variations readily apparent, in forms that live in
the wild state. " *

As a matter of fact, for instance, the same flowers that
formed the funeral garlands that were used to deck the
Egyptian mummy of thousands of years ago, still bloom
and flourish at the present day ; f the same cereal grains
and fruits, seeds and specimens of which were enclosed
in their sarcophagi, still form the staple crops of the
modern land of Egypt, practically unchanged by the
accidents of time or culture.

Many ancient sculptures are also still in existence,
adorning the walls of sepulchral chambers of vast
antiquity — some of them executed quite six thousand
years ago — which conclusively show that the trees, the
plants, and flowers, and even the men and animals of
those days — faithfully represented upon the chiselled
stone — have undergone no visible change in Egypt
during that immense period. These beautifully executed
works of art moreover prove beyond question that though
historic records may not yet have been discovered, going
back further than that era, the civilization of Egypt
was even then an old and highly cultivated civilization ;

species in a wild state. Deprived of the fostering care of man, all
these artificial varieties would quickly be overpowered and choked by
weeds or other natural growths and become extinct. Some of these plants
appear to be new species — they are however mere " sports " or acci-
dental variations of the original stock.

* Extract from Presidential address of Sir Archibald Geikie to the
British Association Meeting at Edinburgh, reported in The Times of
August 4, 1892.

j In some of these cases, these flowers, in a dried state, still con-
tinued quite recognizable, when the coffins were opened.

THE FLORA OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 341

for it goes without saying that these works of high
artistic finish must have been the work of people
already possessing an advanced, and therefore ancient,
pre-eminence in the arts and sciences.

We shall have more to say presently about the
antiquities of Egypt, in our following chapter; mean-
while in taking our leave of the Great Bush Region
we shall merely observe that the whole of the evidence
thus far collected respecting the earth's antiquity, tends
more and more to establish the certainty of this great
and salient fact, that the development of life upon our
planet in its present highly organized condition, must
have been the work of chronological periods, practically
boundless in extent.

Eternity is not to be measured, either in its future
or in its past, by any cycle of years, however numerous.
Man therefore, in speculating upon his own ephemeral
existence, and his position among infinities, may not
unreasonably regard himself as poised upon a mighty
centre, balanced midway between an infinite past, and
an Eternity of ages yet to come.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DESERT ZONE.

Approximate Limits and Position of The Desert Zone. Erroneous
Popular Ideas Respecting Deserts. Contours of Desert Territory in the
Soudan. Limits of the Tropical Rains. The Nile Region. The
Variable Rains of North Africa. The Algerian "Tell." Origin of the
Word " Sahara. " Arab Terms Denoting the Different Classes of
Desert. Action of Sand under Influence of Wind. Movements of
Sand Dunes. Buried Cities in the Desert of Gobi. Sand Storms.
Whirlwinds, or Gyrating Storms. Alleged Destruction of the Army of
Cambyses in One of These Storms. Account of the Catastrophe Given
by Herodotus. Effect of Intense Drought upon the Dead Bodies of
Camels, etc. Great Mortality of Animals on Caravan Routes. Losses
of Men and Animals by Losing Their Way in Sand Storms. Causes
of Sudden Storms in Deserts. Period of the Day when they are
Most Prevalent. Description of a Desert Sand Storm. Precautions to
be Taken. Sand-Drift as a Rock-carving Agent. Whirlwinds in the
Nubian Desert. Pillars of Sand the Supposed Work of Evil Spirits.
Arab Superstitions as to Genii, etc. The " Simoon " or Hot Wind.
Injury Done by Hot Winds in Australia. Undulatory Motion of These
Winds. "Red Fogs." Remarkable Instance of Red Fog at Sea.
Some Scientific Aspects of "Dust." Formation and Collapse of Dust
Pillars in the Mongolian Desert. Phenomena of Intense Heat. Hour
of Maximum Temperature. " Goggles " or Sand Glasses. Effects of
Heat and Drought in Arresting Decay. Mummies. The Egyptian
Embalmers' Art. Egyptian Tombs. Great " Find " of Royal Mummies
at Deir-El-Bahari. The preservation of Flowers, etc., in Mummy Cases.
Immortality of Traditions of National Glory. Mirage — its Characteristic
Effects. The Mirage and the Waters of Oblivion. Animals not Deceived
by It. Loss of an Egyptian Regiment by Following Mirage. The Koran
on Mirage. Effects of Vast Expanse upon Perspective. Effects of
Atmosphere in Creating Illusions. The Desert Night. Rapid Fall of
Temperature after Sunset. Necessity for Warm Clothing at Night.
Cold Winds : their Causes and Penetrating Character. Night Marches —
Question of Their Advisability. Count D'Escayrac de Lauture's Opin-
ions. The Carriage of Water. Camels and Water. Camels and Green
Food. Desert Watering-Places. Ancient Wells. Losses of Camels in
traversing Waterless Tracts. The Oases. Water Courses. The Great Al-
gerian Oasis of " Wargla." Beauty of the Oases. Their Generally Unhealthy
Climate. Artesian Weils. Flora of the Desert Zone. The Date Palm>

342

THE DESERT ZONE. 343

Its Geographical Limits. The Koran on Vegetation and the Sequence
of the Seasons. Cinnamon Growing in Pure Sand. The Scriptures
on Vegetation and Human Life. Desert Plants. Thorny Acacise.
Desert Grasses. Prickly Grasses. Valuable Character of Certain Desert
Grasses. Dry Herbage, broken up and blown away by the Wind.
The Scriptural Simile of Human Life likened to the Grass of the Field.
Scriptural Description of Drought. Explanation of some of these
Scriptural Allusions. Desert Animals. Protective Colourings of Gazelles.
Beauty and Symmetry of the Gazelle. "The Gazelle Eye." Desert
Birds. Ostriches. The Desert Nomads. Bedouin Ode to the Wilderness.
Anecdote of Arab Self-Command. The Stranger, as " the Guest of
Allah." "The Temptation of Sidi Aomar "— an Arab Legend. Ziaras,
or Pious Visits to Tombs. Quarrels Settled by Appeals to Superstitious
Fears. Arab Justice and Generosity. Execution of an Arab Murderess.
Desert Scenery. Magnificent Effects of Desert Sunsets. Dr. Junker's
Description of a Desert Journey. Fascinations of Desert Travelling.
Count D'Escayrac de Lauture on Comfort during a Desert Journey.
Mr. Gordon Gumming and Dr. Schweinfurth on Scented Desert Herb-
age. Pierre Loti on the Powerfully Aromatic Herbage of the Desert
of Sinai. Tamarisk Manna. The Desert Thymaceae. "The Smell of
the Fields on the Garments of Jacob."

Desert Zone forms our third territorial division,
counting from the Equator.

As in the former cases, one of these zones is placed
in each hemisphere, upon the polar margin of the
Bush Country — we must, however, at once admit, that
though these deserts are to be found, more or less
exactly occupying their positions in each of the great
continents, right round the world, still their dimensions,
owing to local causes, are enormously magnified at certain
points, as for instance in North East Africa and Arabia ; and
their boundaries are much less regular, and less clearly
defined, than those of the regions already described.

When therefore we venture to assign to the Desert
Zones, a position extending from 25° to 30°, of North
and South latitude, occuping two bands, extending
round the earth's terrestrial surface, each 300 geograph-
ical miles in width, we are aware that this can be re-
garded as only approximately correct. In the first

344 BOUNDARIES OF DESERTS.

place the actual boundaries of these permanently desert
regions are very imperfectly ascertained; the location
assigned to them upon the map must consequently,
in the same way, be regarded only as marking their
approximate, and not their true position: indeed, from
what has been already stated, in describing the dry
regions of the Bush Country, it will be evident that
it must be a question of considerable difficulty to decide
at what point the dry bush country is supposed- to
end and the desert proper to begin ; because at certain
seasons immense tracts of the bush country become
for the time being veritable deserts : that is, if we take
the word " Desert " to mean an uninhabitable region,
where man dare not tarry, except at a few widely
scattered watering places, after leaving which the
wayfarer must hurry on or perish.

If on the other hand we take it to mean a tract
of country always destitute of vegetation of any kind,
then there would be very few places which would
deserve the designation of " Desert" ; because almost
everywhere throughout the desert zones there is more
or less herbage, and occasional clumps of dwarf bushes.

The popular idea of the desert, as a perfectly flat
surface of burning sand, without a particle of vegetation
anywhere to be seen, must therefore be regarded as
erroneous — the surface of the desert being in fact, as
a rule, broken, irregular, and varied, like that of almost
every other extensive territory, in nearly every kind
of way. Some of it consists of mountains or precipitous
hills, the rest mostly of undulating ground ; very little
being really level.

For instance, in the survey made by order of the
Egyptian Government in 1876, for the proposed line

CONTOUR OF THE SOUDAN DESERTS. 345

of railway to the Soudan, " out of about 800 miles "
which were levelled "only one single stretch of eight
or nine miles " was found to be " really plain and
almost level," * all the rest is described as rolling ground,
with isolated hills of various sizes showing upon the
horizon, while from Abu Gusi south east to Khartoum, a
distance of some 200 miles, the country partakes almost
of a mountainous character — the caravan route which
of course selected the lowest ridges, climbing " up and
down slopes of 100 and 150 yards in height."! It
is therefore clear from the account given by the railway
engineers, that the great desert region through which
the Soudan railway would have had to pass, has a
surface quite as varied as that of most plain countries.

Then as regards the supposed entire sterility of the
desert, we are assured by the same authority that during
the many months that the different parties of surveyors
spent, in exploring the country, they " never fed one
camel in the desert, and not one died of hunger. "§
All this shows how erroneous are the popular notions
of what " a desert " is.

The essential characteristic of the true desert is that
of a country possessed of a rainless, or nearly rainless,
climate — where drought may be said to be almost
continuous; for in the desert proper there is no regular
rainy season; any rains that do fall are intermittent,
and altogether uncertain in their character. Some
years, rains — even torrential rains** — may fall for a few

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos (Railway Engineer) 1880, p. 35.

t Ibid., p. 35. § Ibid., p. 59.

** This was well illustrated in the first days of August 1896, while
these pages were in the press, by a British camp being nearly swept away
by a sudden flood in the Nubian Desert, during the Soudan Campaign
then in preparation.

346 RAINLESS DISTRICTS.

days, as the existence of considerable numbers of dry
water courses, dry saline lake beds, and the marks of
ancient torrents, conclusively proves; whilst during
other years the rains may be practically nil — indeed, in
most of the principal deserts, according to the reports of
residents inhabiting the various oases, it is stated that
sometimes for several years in succession, not a drop
of rain has been known to fall. Thus in the oasis of
" Tuat " in Southern Morocco it is said " to rain scarcely
once in twenty years." * Some of the Arabs inhabiting
this region have even been known to doubt the fact
of its being possible for water to fall from the sky.

The phenomenon of the tropical rains has already
been discussed in considerable detail; the incessant
rains of the equatorial zone being shown to become
changed, first, into zones of double rainy seasons; and
next, into those where a single rainy season prevails;
this latter gradually getting shorter and shorter, until
at length there is no longer any regular rainfall; the
rains become more and more intermittent, and we enter
the almost rainless desert zone.

Endeavours have from time to time been made by
various observers to try and fix the exact points where
these changes may be said to take place ; but they are
so gradual in their nature, and so liable to be modified
by local circumstances, that the attempt has been
attended with only very partial success, for these
countries are visited by comparatively few travellers,
and they generally endeavour to time their journeys so as
to pass through at a period when native reports show
that the wells are fairly well supplied; the caravan

* Stanford's Compendittm of Geography and Travel for Africa,
2nd Edition of 1880. Edited by Keith Johnston, p. 26.

NORTHERN LIMITS OF THE TROPICAL RAINS. 347

routes in some of the more waterless tracts having"
to be entirely closed for traffic at some seasons: — thus
the Egyptian Government at one time closed the ancient
caravan road across the Nubian Desert, from Korosko
to Abou Hammed, on account of the dreadful mortality
which took place upon it, but it was reopened upon
the application of foreign consuls, as the most direct
route to the Soudan. *

In Northern Africa the Desert Zone may be held
to attain its greatest proportions, and the French traveller
Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, who had extensive
experience of desert travelling in the Sahara, and in
the region to the southwards known as the Soudan,
thinks that the regular tropical rains do not reach
higher than to about Lat. 17° N.,f while a later
authority, Mr. Keith Johnston, in the last issue of his
Royal Atlas, fixes the limit of these rains, at the parallel
of Lat. 1 8° N. § An examination of the map will
show that this line passes as nearly as possible through
the important town of Berber, on the Nile, and slightly
to the southwards of the western limit of the great
bend of that river, near Korti, now celebrated as having
been the British store depot and point of departure
for the force which marched across the Bayuda Desert,
for the relief of General Gordon, at Khartoum, in 1885.
The objects of that expedition, as we may all remember,
were frustrated, not through any fault committed by
the distinguished general who commanded it, but through
the fatal influence of civil politicians at ,home, who

* See The Xile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1867, p. 15.

f Le Desert et Le Soudan, Etudes sur L'Afrique au Nord de 1'Equateur,
par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, Paris 1853, p. 60.

§ See Keith Johnston's Royal Atlas, published 1884, Map No. 42.
(Egypt and Nubia.)

348 A GREAT DESERT MARCH.

could not be induced to make up their minds, until
too late in the season, when the waters of the Nile
which formed the British line of communication, were
known to be rapidly falling. The expedition was
therefore foredoomed to failure by starting at the wrong
time of year; the numerous accounts of it that have
been' published, however, show that there was generally
a good supply of coarse grasses for camels throughout
the whole extent of this desert march, of 185 miles,
measured in a direct line from Korti to Gubat, but that ex-
cept in small quantities permanent water of good quality
was then to be found at one place only, known as the
fountain of Gakdul, situated about midway between
these two points.

The Nile region, from the remotest ages, has been
the constant wonder of the world — all the phenomena
of its existence appearing unprecedented, mysterious,
and inexplicable — for here the desert assumes its most
gigantic proportions; and the great river itself has
steadily flowed from age to age, for nearly 1200 miles,
through an almost continuous desert, without being
fed by a single affluent. For a great part of its course
the river has worn its way through an almost rainless
region : so dry are the adjoining deserts, and so scanty
and uncertain are the rains, that the cultivation of crops
of any kind is totally impossible without constant
irrigation by means of canals and waterwheels. For
the greater part of the way from the first to the second
cataract, for example, the actual width of Egypt is only a
few yards bordering the edges of the Nile — the rest is sand.

These vast and interminable deserts, called by what-
ever name we please, the Nubian, the Libyan, or the
Sahara, form to all intents and purposes one continuous

VAST EXPANSE OF NORTH AFRICAN DESERTS, 349

stretch of desert country, extending across northern
Africa from the Red Sea to the western ocean. Up
to the present, the southern limits of this great
region have been only very imperfectly ascertained ;
but still enough is known to show that the enormous
area of desert which occupies the north eastern corner
of Africa gradually becomes narrower as we proceed
towards the westward, the southern limits of the actual
desert trending more and more towards the northward,
until in North- West Africa, the limits which we have
ventured to assign as the normal extent of this
zone are not greatly if at all exceeded.

Upon its northern boundary the Sahara merges into
a region visited by variable rains, which come down
from the Mediterranean during the winter season — but
observations made by the French show that even in
Algeria these rains rarely extend further from the coast
than a distance of about 100 leagues, or say a little
more than 240 English miles, * as the greater part of
the rainfall is intercepted by the chain of the Atlas
Mountains which extends across Northern Africa as far
as the Gulf of Gabes.

The region to the north of these mountains in Algeria
is known as the " Tell," from the Latin " Tellus," which
mostly consists of pasture and cultivated lands — in
Morocco this territory is known as the "Riff," but as
can be seen from the signal station at Gibraltar, where
a magnificent panorama is visible, the mountains
extend much nearer to the coast than in Algeria, some
of the foot hills of the high ranges in fact coming down
to the coast line.

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, Etudes sur L'Afrique au Nord de
L'Equateur, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, Paris 1853, p. 2.

350 THE ALGERIAN TELL.

The Algerian Tell begins on the Mediterranean,
and extends to the foot of the Middle Atlas, of French
geographers, " with an area computed at about 54,000
square miles and an average breadth of not more
than 47 miles. " * It becomes wider, however, towards
the west. Behind and south of the Tell is the
"Region des Plateaux," sometimes called the middle
range of the Tell, a region consisting of mountainous
table lands, rising to a height of 3800 feet above sea-
level, interspersed with a series of brackish lakes, or
salt marshes, called " Shotts. " Most of this country is
pasture land, corn being only grown in favoured spots,
—and the land is generally covered with dwarf aromatic
herbs and high grasses, supplying good fodder for cattle ;
but after the wet season is over difficulties arise about
water, the stagnant pools, etc., being named " Ghedir "
(traitor) by the Arabs, on account of their uncertain
nature, as no dependence can be placed upon their
supply, and most of them dry up entirely.

These table lands are bounded on the South by the
" Chaine Saharienne " or " Great Atlas " of the French
geographers, which form " a series of detached eleva-
tions some forty or forty-five miles broad, rising here
and there to considerable heights, which are usually
covered with snow till the end of March " f and we
have seen snow there at the end of April the winds at
this season being also intensely cold and penetrating.
From tjiese mountains numerous streams flow down to
the southwards into the Sahara, which gradually become
lost in the sand, or terminate in salt lakes. But the same
difficulty in ascertaining the exact limits of the desert

* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Africa, 2nd
Edition, 1880, edited by Keith Johnston, pp. 18 and 19.
f Ibid., p. 21.

THE ALGERIAN SAHARA. 351

meets us here as elsewhere. According to the French
General Daumas whose map of the Sahara Algerien,
engraved under the direction of the French War Office,
has always been considered a leading authority on
these matters,

"The desert comes up, in the region placed to the south
of Oran and Tlemsen, between the 32nd and 2Qth parallels
of latitude, under the name of ' Djebel Batten '. The line
of the watershed follows this direction and there presents
two great inclines, one towards the Sea, and the other towards
the interior of the Sahara " *— but the General goes on to
explain that " from the 291)1 parallel of latitude we are in
the desert technically called ' El Falat\ Life seems to cease
until the 27th, where it reappears for a moment in the
mountains of Touareg, and then disappears entirely, as far
as the Soudan or the country of the Negroes. " f

Here it may be well to explain that the word
" Sahara " does not by any means necessarily imply an
uninhabitable desert, but rather a vast low-lying plain
of sand or grass — and large tracts upon its northern
frontier consist, at certain seasons, of well watered pasture
lands, as the number of " wadt's, " or streams, marked
upon the map, conclusively shows, but after the cessa-
tion of the rains, these waters quickly dry up; thus
compelling the abandonment of the greater part of
these plains; the Arabs being then obliged either to
migrate into the hills, or to retire into the numerous
oases, where permanent fountains exist.

Not to be too prolix and technical upon a matter
which has given rise to a great deal of controversy
even among the tolba, or literary Arabs, themselves—

* Le Sahara Algerien, Etudes sur la region au Sud des Etablissements
Frar^ais en Algerie, par le Lieut.-Col. Daumas, published 1845, p. 4.
f Ibid., p. 5.

352 THE LAND OF THE SUNRISE.

the word " Sahara " seems rather to mean, the " land
of the Sehaur " '(otherwise " Sahar ") or sunrise, perhaps
because the sun seems to rise out of the plain, as it
seems to do out of the water at sea. The " Sehaur "
indicating the brief moment dividing the night from
the day, that immediately precedes the " Fedjer " or
dawn. — The Sehaur is the last moment during which
it is still lawful to eat, drink, and smoke during the
month of Ramadan or sacred fast ; while the " Fedjer "
or first dawn indicates the moment when a white
woollen thread can be just distinguished from a black
thread, from which time until sunset (El Moghreb) the
most rigorous abstinence is imposed upon the faithful.
According to Mohammedan ecclesiastical law every
true Moslem is supposed to be up and ready at El
Fedjer, this being the hour of Morning Prayer. It is
regarded by strict Moslems as a great sin to be still
slumbering when the sun arises.

Then as regards " the desert, " there are three words
in general use among the Arabs of the Sahara, to
denote the various kinds of country most usually met
with. " Fiafi" indicates the habitable desert, such as the
oases where permanent water fountains exist — "Kifar"
or " Khela, " " the abandoned country, " comprising
the wide and sandy plain, mostly consisting of pasture
land during and for some time after the rains, but
which want of water causes to be subsequently aban-
doned"— lastly " El falat" is the uninhabitable sea of
sand, sterile and bare, whose eternal waves, raised by
the scorching breath of the simoom into billows of
drifting sand, not unfrequently bear a strong resemblance
to those of a stormy sea, suddenly turned to stone. *

* See Lt Sahara Algerien^ par le General Daumas, 1845, p. 3.

DRIFTING SANDS. 353

There are also other terms to designate the rocky
(warr) or bushy (ghaba) districts, while " Ghoud" is
the region of sand dunes. *

These drifting sands constitute quite a history in
themselves. They testify in the first place to the pre-
valence of strong gales of wind blowing from the same
quarter, whose force has been sufficient to raise up these
great systems of sand dunes from fifty to sixty, and
sometimes one hundred feet in height, and more.
Wherever the sand is deep these dunes are likely to
be formed, and where it is shallow, as upon the wide
expanse of flat plains where the wind passes over the
surface without being able to get much hold of the
sand, there are simply ripples, such as are seen on the
sea shore when the tide is low; but generally here
and there through these plains regular undulations may
be observed, evidently formed by the heavier drifts
which almost exactly represent the rollers which follow
each other in rhythmical sequence across the ocean
after the subsidence of a severe storm.

Sand in fact, notwithstanding its great specific gravity,
acts in many respects very much like water, under the
influence of the winds; and where it meets with an
obstacle, it mounts up in spray, exactly like broken
water hurled by the violence of the waves upon a rock-
bound coast ; but of course its non-fluid character prevents
any reflux, as in the case of water, and so these dunes
are gradually heaped up and are always kept moving
on. The forward movement of the sand waves pro-
ceeds under a regular system, which has been described
by Count D'Escayrac de Lauture with great minuteness.

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853, p. 18.

VOL. I. 23

354 SAND DUNES.

The undulations, of whatever size, generally show a
gradual slope towards the wind; while the driven sand
keeps constantly pushing upwards; and then flowing
over the crest it falls down away from the wind on
the opposite side in a much steeper slope. From a
number of measurements taken with a clinometer in
the deserts of Sinai and Egypt the angle of rest for
dry running sand has been ascertained to be 3 1 degrees. *
Careful observations of drifting sands, when carried out
during a series of years, seem to show that it is never
at rest ; and that the whole mass is, in many places,
kept slowly moving forward under the influence of
the prevailing winds. The sand dunes upon the West
Coasts of Ireland and France furnish good examples
of this, and French observations seem to show that
the forward movement of the sand dunes on the French
coasts amounts to about twenty to twenty-five metres
per annum, f This rate of progress must, however, we
think, be somewhat exceptional; because if no steps
were taken to prevent it the sand would advance
something like a quarter of a mile in twenty years.
Nevertheless that sand dunes do advance with greater
or less speed, is a well ascertained fact; and great
injury has sometimes been done by them ; houses, lands,
and even cities, being engulfed, and buried beneath the
drifting sand.

In the desert of Gobi for instance the remains of
several ancient towns or cities have been discovered,
which were buried in the drifting sands at periods of
unknown antiquity; and in one or two cases these

* See The Engineer of June 14, 1889.

f M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, Le Desert et Le Soudan,
1853, footnote to p. 34.

BURIED CITIES OF THE DESERT OF GOBI. 355

buried cities are now in process of disinterment — that
is to say, the sand, while still moving on from age
to age, seems to have passed by the sites of these
ruins, leaving them now exposed to view. " The
walls though only built of sun-dried brick, still stand,
and exhibit the holes in which the rafters were
inserted, as clearly as if they had only been just used,"
and though it may seem strange that such structures
should be preserved through so many ages, this is
readily accounted for by the extreme dryness of the
climate. * We shall have more to say, however, upon
the marvellously conservative action of these climates
further on. Meanwhile, reverting to the question of
the sand drift, if we examine the storm-blown surfaces
of any great desert or other sand plain, it will be seen
that even a small stone, or tuft of grass, by creating
an obstacle, will form its own miniature dune, and the
sand will be observed to form a rounded heap against
it, to windward, and then passing round the sides, to
settle, and form a species of triangle, to leeward ; thus
marking the cone of the sheltering influence of each
obstacle: almost exactly as is done by a rock protruding
above the surface in a swiftly flowing stream of water,
the cone of shelter influence, being in the latter case
marked below the rock, by a calm area, and backwater.

All deserts seem to be peculiarly liable to sudden
storms of wind, some of which are of extraordinary
violence, and carry sand, and even small pebbles along
with them in a wonderful way ; the air being sometimes
so thickly filled with fine particles that it becomes

* See paper on the Shifting Sands of the Great Desert of Gobi and
the Buried Cities, by Sir T. Douglas Forsyth, K.C.S.I., in Journal of
R.G.S. Society, Vol. xlvii., 1877.

356 DESERT SAND STORMS.

painful and possibly even dangerous to respire it — the dust
on these occasions being of so fine and penetrating a
nature, that it makes its way everywhere, and through
every sort of covering, no matter what precautions
may have been taken to exclude it — and is of course
very prejudicial to the works of watches, and other
delicate instruments, including breech actions, and locks
of guns, etc. * Watches therefore should be wrapped
up in wash-leather bags.

In some of the great deserts, these storms frequently
take the form of whirlwinds, and columns of sand
and dust appear gyrating across the plain in a most
threatening way, apparently menacing passing caravans
with destruction. Many stories are related by the
Arab historians of instances in which whole caravans,
and even armies, have been suddenly overwhelmed by
these storms, and buried in the sand.

In these incredulous days, however, these histories
have come to be regarded as exaggerations, and there
can be no doubt that this modern view of the case
is substantially correct — these calamities, when they
have occurred, being probably due to thirst, and not
to sand storms, although the partially buried corpses,
subsequently found more or less covered by the sand
drift, may at first sight appear to furnish strong corro-
borative evidence of their destruction by a whirlwind.

The destruction of the army of the Persian Monarch
Cambyses (B.C. 524) f which perished in the Libyan

* In the dry plains of South Africa where cold winds and dust storms,
are prevalent, experience shows, that " pneumonia " or acute inflammation
of the lungs is a thing always to be dreaded. At Johannesburg and
other places in the Transvaal in winter it is sometimes exceedingly fatal*
acute cases proceeding to a fatal issue in the course of a few hours.

f The History of the World, by Philip Smith, Vol. i., p. 286.

THE ARMY OF CAMBYSES BURIED IN SAND. 357

Desert, furnishes us with a suitable instance in point.
This army consisted of 50,000 men sent to destroy
the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, and all perished in the
burning sands. * Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, an
acute and accurate observer of desert phenomena,
however, has come to the conclusion that this memor-
able event, so often referred to in discussions upon
this subject, is in all probability due, either to the
men having simply lost their way in the desert, or
perhaps having been betrayed by unfaithful guides,
and so having fallen victims to the slow tortures of
thirst; f and this seems the more probable, Cambyses
having, according to Herodotus, incurred the hatred of
the Egyptians, in consequence of the frightful atrocities
to which he had subjected Egypt during the previous
year. The account given by Herodotus of the loss
of the Persian army is as follows: "When the army
reached Thebes, he (Cambyses) detached about 50,000
men, and ordered them to reduce the Ammonians to
slavery, and to burn the oracular temple of Jupiter
while he with the rest of his army marched against
the Ethiopians. " § Herodotus then proceeds to detail
the losses sustained by the latter force in consequence
of failure of provisions, and the subsequent retreat of
Cambyses to Thebes " after losing a great part of his
army " and proceeds to narrate that

"Those who had been sent on the expedition against the
Ammonians, after having set out from Thebes, marched under
the conduct of guides, and are known to have reached the

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, I4th Edition (Article "Egypt").

f Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853 p. 42.

§ Herodotus, Book III (Thalia) Ch. 25. Literally translated from
the text of Baehr by Henry Gary, M.A., 1891, pp. 151 — 2.

358 ACCOUNT GIVEN BY HERODOTUS.

City Oasis which is inhabited by the Samians, said to be of
the GEschrionian tribe, — and they are distant seven days
march from Thebes, across the sands. This country in the
Greek language is called the Island of the Blessed. It is
said then, that the army reached this country ; but afterwards
none except the Ammonians, and those who have heard their
report, are able to give any account of them ; for they neither
reached the Ammonians, nor returned back. But the Ammon-
ians make the following report: when they had advanced
from this oasis, towards them, across the sands, and were
about half way between them and the oasis, as they were taking
dinner, a strong and vehement south wind blew, and carrying
with it heaps of sand, covered them over ; and in this manner
they disappeared. The Ammonians say that such was the
fate of this army." *

Now, if, as Count D'Escayrac de Lauture supposes,
the army once lost their way, they would have very
little chance of finding it again, for as he points out,
their trail would be immediately effaced by the freshly
drifted sand, so that it would have been impossible
for them to retrace their steps ; thus it seems more than
probable that the only memorial of this great catas-
trophe may have been the subsequent discovery of
their bones, or of the desiccated corpses, converted into
a species of leather by the combined action of the sun
and the extreme drought. It is a well-ascertained fact
that the conversion of animal remains into their pri-
mary elements of " dust to dust " according to the
popular formula — is due to a species of fermentation
which, under natural conditions, will, in the case of the
human subject, accomplish this salutary and beneficent
work of nature, in about a year or eighteen months, that
is provided that the process of Nature is not interfered with.

* Herodotus, Book III (Thalia) ch. 26, translated by Henry Gary, M.A.,
1891, p. 152.

DEAD CAMELS IN THE DESERT. 359

In the desert, however, the exceedingly rapid eva-
poration, and the almost total absence of moisture in the
atmosphere, has the effect of arresting decomposition
— and thus it comes to pass that the bodies of camels,
etc., which have fallen by the wayside, along the caravan
routes, are often found to retain their original appear-
ance for a great length of time — the remains not un-
commonly, where there are no beasts of prey to devour
them, presenting the appearance of the animals stretched
upon the ground, and taking their natural repose, almost
exactly as in life.

In the description given by Sir Samuel Baker of
his march across the Nubian Desert, there is a striking
picture of the scene presented at a desert watering
place known as El Moorahd, or "The Bitter Well," on
the caravan route between Korosko and Abu Hammed.

"The valley" (he tells us) "was a 'valley of dry bones'.
Innumerable skeletons of camels lay in all directions: the
ships of the desert thus stranded on their voyage. Withered
heaps of parched skin and bone, lay here and there, in the
distinct forms in which the camels had breathed their last;
the dry desert air had converted the hide into a coffin.
There were no flies here, thus there were no worms to devour
the carcases, but the usual sextons were the crows, although
sometimes too few to perform their office." *

Throughout this desert march of 230 miles, waterless
except at the point already indicated, the route is in
many places actually marked out by the bodies of
these poor, patient, and enduring creatures, for throughout
the route from Korosko, Sir Samuel Baker states,
" the skeletons of camels number about eight per mile, "
and for part of the way twice that number, while in

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1867, p. 10.

360 MOVING PILLARS OF SAND.

a steep pass through a range of hills, where the heat
is intense and the sand deep, the route is a mass of
bones, every weak animal giving in at this trying place. *
We give these details, we need hardly say, in illus-
tration of the difficulties and dangers of desert marches.
Thirst and fatigue, however, in all these cases have
been the cause of this frightful mortality, and so far
as we have been able to discover there is no recorded
instance, where the losses have been known to occur
from rnen or animals being overwhelmed by a sand
storm. In the surveying expedition for the Soudan
railway some of the tents were occasionally upset by
moving pillars of sand, but that was all. f Men
have, however, constantly been known to get separated
from their companions, and lost during the profound
darkness which is occasioned by the dense clouds of
dust which these storms create, and, if they lose their
presence of mind, may wander away, in their hopeless
endeavours to rejoin their companions, so that it may
become difficult, or even impossible, to find them again:
the noise of the tempest effectually preventing shouts,
etc. being audible. General Daumas records one such
case, where the man, an Arab, was lost in the midst of
an immense waterless sand plain ; he was unfortunately
not missed until the evening halt, and was of course
unable to pick up the trail of his caravan, which was
effaced as soon as made ; and though the caravan halted
the whole of the following day, and parties of mounted
Arabs started in different directions in hopes of finding
him, he was never heard of again ; the caravan being of

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1867,
pp. 14, 15.

f Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 16.

DESERT WIND STORMS. 361

course subsequently forced to continue its march, as
their water supply had run short. *

The occurrence of these furious squalls and tempests
is, however, only a natural consequence of the sudden
and extreme alternations of heat and cold, to which
all very dry regions are subject. When we remember
that the winds themselves are caused by changes of
temperature, it must be evident that these phenomena
of sudden storms are only what might be expected to
occur everywhere throughout the desert zone. These
questions have, however, been fully commented upon in
the Section on " Climates and Temperatures, " to which
we beg to refer the reader.

The period of the day when the solar heat is at its
maximum, it may be desirable to repeat, is generally
in the afternoon, say about three p.m., and conse-
quently these storms are much more common in the
afternoons than in the mornings, though of course they
may occasionally occur at any hour, especially during
the prevalence of the simoom or hot wind.

Such storms usually, however, come up shortly before
sunset,f because it is at that hour that the changes
of temperature begin to be very marked, but the wind
does not in general attain its greatest intensity until
after the night has fallen, § because it is not till then
that the fall in the temperature has become consider-
able— the reduction in the temperature after nightfall
being generally very rapid. Count D'Escayrac de

* See Le Grand Desert, Itineraire (Tune Caravane du Sahara au
Pays des Negres, par Eugene Daumas (French General), Paris 1848,
pp. 299—301.

y Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,

1853, P- 38.
§ Ibid., p. 36.

362 DESCRIPTION OF A GREAT SAND STORM.

Lauture, an authority of considerable weight in these
matters, has recorded these facts, while we have ventured
to assign the reasons for them which we make bold
to think are borne out by scientific data.

One of the remarkable features connected with these
storms is the extreme suddenness with which they
sometimes come on. The following account of one of
them is abridged and translated from the description
given by Count D'Escayrac de Lauture —

" Travelling during a lovely night in the month of June,
in the desert, about three days' journey from Suakim, I was
enjoying the striking clearness of the heavens, where no cloud
obscured a single star. I was admiring the profound calm
of the atmosphere, when all of a sudden the scene changed ;
a black cloud showed itself in the East, rising with frightful
rapidity, and in a few moments covered one half of the sky.
A sudden squall, of extreme violence, covered us with sand ;
and pebbles, the size of peas, beat upon our faces. Soon
the whole heavens were covered with an immense cloud of
sand, enveloping us in profound obscurity, which made it
impossible for us to find our way. We had carefully wrapped
up our faces, but we could not open our eyes without getting
them filled with sand. The camels groaned and knelt at
almost every step. I succeeded with difficulty in getting my
men together, whom the obscurity, and the restiveness of
their camels, had separated; and although the most distant
was but a few paces away they ran the greatest risk of getting
lost, my voice, which I exerted with all my strength, being
hardly audible. We stopped, and the camels at once stretched
themselves out upon the sand, while the men were so
harrassed by the hail which pelted upon them, filling their
eyes, noses, and mouths with sand, that I did not attempt to
have the animals unloaded. Sheltering myself against my
hygeen, whose high saddle afforded some slight protection,
I enveloped my head with a long Tripoli shawl, which formed

CARAVANS IN SAND STORMS. 363

my girdle, and though not daring to dismiss from my mind
the fear of being buried beneath the deluge of sand, still
finally I dropped off to sleep, and my men imitated my
example.

" When I awoke at daybreak, the great calm had re-
turned, the heaven had regained its clearness, and casting
my eyes around me I saw the camels covered up to their
necks in sand ; one of my camel drivers, who still slept, had
three inches of sand upon his chest, and I could no longer
find my sword which I had placed beside me, and which it
took me some time to find again." *

The difficulties of caravans are often increased on
these occasions by stampedes among their camels,
which becoming frightened by the fury of the gusts,
and rendered frantic by the ceaseless hail of sand and
gravel beating upon them, are apt to break away, and
get lost in the darkness and confusion. These animals
have of course to be hunted up if possible the moment
the storm has abated, and the light returns. But as
the possibilities as to delays are limited according to
the quantity of water in possession of the party, and
their distance from the next watering place, consider-
able losses are not uncommon; for this reason among
others, according to Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, it
is always desirable to push on and continue the march
as long as it is possible to guide the caravan in the
right direction, the party keeping together as closely
as possible, so as not to become separated from each
other, because all traces of the trail, are, of course,
instantly obliterated by the drifting sand, f The camels,
however, are always very unwilling to face the wind

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
Paris, 1853, pp. 39—40.
f Ibid., pp. 48 — 9.

364 ROCK CARVINGS BY SAND-DRIFT.

and the eddying clouds of sand and dust; there is
therefore great difficulty in the matter, and so caravans
generally halt during severe storms, unless questions
as to water supply are very pressing.

The force with which the sand, and even small
pebbles, are driven by the violence of the wind, on
these occasions, is at times quite phenomenal. To
face it at all, a man requires to have his eyes protected
with closely fitting sand goggles, and the rest of the
face, below the eyes, had better be protected by a
handkerchief, used as a veil — a plan which we have
successfully adopted in a very bad storm. In torrents,
it is well known, the force of the current will in course
of time wear away the hardest rocks, and mould them
into all kinds of curious shapes. The sand drift has
very much the same effect as swiftly running water,
in this respect, and where it impinges against a mass
of rock, by its constant attrition, will carve it into
fantastic shapes, very much resembling the action of
water, cutting its surfaces into cup-like cavities, of
considerable size and depth, like the "pot-holes" in
the beds of mountain torrents. In a recently published
work, describing a journey in the desert between the
Nile and the Red Sea, a photogravure is given of
rocks sand -worn in this manner.

"Another moulding agent," (says the writer of this book)
"of little power in northern climates, is here (in the Egyp-
tian desert) a potent instrument in producing unfamiliar effects
in rock carving. I refer to the sand, driven before the wind,
which honeycombs and undermines the hardest rocks. " *

Many of the curiously eaten away, abraded surfaces

* On Either Side of the Red Sea, by E. N. Buxton, 1895, p. 5 of
introduction — part I, "The Nile and the Eastern Desert."

WALTZING PILLARS OF SAND. 365

of rocks in these deserts, which have sometimes puzzled
visitors to account for their appearance, are no doubt
caused by sand-drift, which is here a very powerful
wearing-away agent. Thus, the undermining of cliffs and
other masses of rock may be effected by the constant
drift of sand driven in one particular direction by the
prevailing winds, and the remarkable circular cavities
made in positions where it would have been impossible
for water to get at them, is probably caused by revolv-
ing storms, which causes the sand drift to revolve,
and grind their interiors with great velocity and force.
All along the Nile these sand-carvings are common.

What are known as whirlwinds are merely another
variety of these storms, where the effect is sometimes
merely local, and the wind gyrates in spiral form,
with more or less velocity. These curious phenomena
seem to be most common in the great deserts of
Egypt and Nubia, and the month of June appears
to be the period during which they are most pre-
valent. Sir Samuel Baker, another leading authority
in these matters, states that their force is often
" sufficient to raise dense columns of sand and dust,
several thousand feet high," which frequently continue
in existence and without falling to the ground,
"for many hours, usually moving in circles, resembling in
the distance solid pillars of sand. I have frequently" (he
says) "seen many such columns at the same time, in the
boundless desert, all travelling, or waltzing, in various direc-
tions, at the wilful choice of each whirlwind : this vagrancy
of character being an undoubted proof to the Arab mind, of
their independent and diabolical origin. " *

Nor indeed is this to be wondered at, seeing that

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1867, p. 23.

366 THE SIMOOM.

to the untutored mind, the only means of accounting-
for such strange and to them, of course, wholly
inexplicable phenomena, is by assuming" that they are
the work of some evil spirit. The existence of these
spirits is, moreover, frequently mentioned, both in the
Koran and also in the Scriptures. Thus insanity is
always set down in the latter to the evil spirit, and the
individual is said to be " possessed of a devil. " Both
amongst the Arabs and the Red Indians of North
America, this supposed supernatural character of men-
tal disease causes these unfortunate persons to be
regarded with great veneration, and in the East such
persons frequently assume the saintly character of
hermits, marabouts, and other devotees. The mind, in
such cases, is supposed to be in heaven, whilst the body
alone remains upon earth; and thus it comes to pass
that these persons are regarded as the special favourites
of heaven, and even crimes committed by them do
not detract from their supposed saintly character,
because the mind being abstracted from worldly things
is believed to leave the bodily passions without
control. *

Another remarkable feature of the desert, though it
is by no means confined to these desolate regions only,
is the hot wind, or " Simoom," as it is now generally
called, though a variety of different names have been
given to it, in various parts of the world.

There seems to be good reason to believe that these
winds in all probability have their origin in the desert,
which is supposed to act as the oven which gives
off the heated air, which is then carried down over the

* An Account of the. Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,
by Edwd. Wm. Lane, 5th Edition, p. 232.

HOT WINDS IN AUSTRALIA. 367

inhabited and cultivated districts, by the agency of the
prevailing winds. This is pretty conclusively shown,
because during the prevalence of these hot winds, they
are always found to blow from the quarter where the
desert is known to exist. The continent of Australia
for instance, is peculiarly subject to their influence, the
whole of the temperate regions of Australia being
periodically more or less affected by them, and some
of the highest temperatures in the world have on such
occasions been recorded there — the thermometer some-
times standing for days together, at from 100° to 115°
Fahr. in the shade, and we have seen it a good deal
more even than that.

The injury done to crops and pasture lands by these
hot winds, is often most serious; the vegetation over
large areas of country being burnt up, as if it had
been exposed to the breath of a furnace — in the
vicinity of the Hunter River in New South Wales, for
instance, on one occasion the wheat crop was destroyed
over some thirty miles of country. *

It is, however, generally believed that these intensely
dry heats, though very oppressive, are not absolutely
injurious to the health of human beings f — and even
in the Desert the same fact has been recorded, — they
are exceedingly unpleasant and trying, but do not
seem to produce any serious illness. It is, of course,
there that the Simoom is felt in its greatest intensity,
and in the great Sahara, according to Count D'Escayrac
de Lauture, the Simoom sets in shortly after the vernal

* See Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia,
edit, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1879, PP- 3^ 32. N.B. In January 1896
Australia was visited by a spell of hot winds for three weeks of almost
unexampled intensity.

j Ibid., p. 31.

368 UNDULATIONS OF HOT AIR.

Equinox — and blows, at each point, in an opposite
direction to the Polar current, or counter trades, which
are here passing overhead, as an upper current, in
the higher regions of the atmosphere; and with occa-
sional intermissions the Simoom continues to blow until
the Summer Solstice.* This accounts for the fact that
the Simoom (under the name of the " Sirocco "), though
of course in a comparatively mild form, invades Southern
Europe, and sometimes extends the sphere of its influ-
ence for a considerable distance inland — it is, for in-
stance, occasionally quite distinctly felt all over Spain,
as well as at Pau and other places in the South of France,
The characteristic features of this wind are, of course,
its high temperature and extreme dryness, and in the
desert, according to Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, it
most generally blows in hot gusts, rather than as a
steady breeze; almost as if the plain was being in-
undated by undulations of hot air — which forms so
strongly marked a peculiarity, that the Arabs, who
are keen observers of everything connected with the
natural phenomena of their desert homes, have a saying
"that wind at sea blows horizontally, while that of
the desert jumps, and gallops, in excavating the sand. " f
It seems highly probable that this undulatory motion
of the atmosphere is due to the uprising of waves of
heated air, given off from the scorched surface of the
sand, and gusts of wind, blowing in this manner, would
evidently be likely to put the sand in motion, and carry
a certain quantity of it up into the air, which after-
wards falls in a rain of sand — while the lighter and

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853, pp. 28—9.
t Ibid., p. 46.

RED FOGS. 369

finer particles in the form of dust, rise to an infinitely
greater height, and are sometimes carried to extra-
ordinary distances even out to sea.*

The propelling and carrying powers of the winds,
as we know, are very great — so great, that it is im-
possible to place a limit to their capacity in this respect.
" The red fogs " which navigators speak of, however,
are known to extend many hundreds of miles to sea-
ward. These fogs are caused by clouds of dust, known
to seamen as " sirocco " or " African dust, " which
there can be little doubt proceed from the desert.

" It is of a brick red, or cinnamon colour (such being the
colour of the sands throughout the Sahara), and sometimes comes
down in such quantities as to obscure the sun, darken the hori-
zon, and cover the sails and rigging with a thick coating of dust,
though the vessel may be hundreds of miles from land."f

A remarkable instance of one of these extraordinary
dust storms is related by Dr. Clymer, Fleet-Surgeon
of the U.S. African Squadron, who reports that a "red
fog" was encountered in February 1856 by the U.S.
Ship "Jamestown" while far from any land —

"We were," says he, "immersed in the dust fog six days,
entering it on the night of the Qth of Feb., in Lat. 7° 30'
N. and Long. 15° W. ; and emerging from it on the I5th,
in Lat 9° N. and Long 19° W. The red dust settled
thickly on the sails, decks, etc., from which it was easily
collected. It was an impalpable powder of a brick dust, or
cinnamon colour, and the atmosphere was so dusky, that we
could not have seen a ship beyond a quarter of a mile." §

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853, p. 47.

f The Physical Geography of the Sea, by Lieut. M. F. Maury,
'U.S.N., 1 6th Edit. p. 145.

§ Sailing Directions, by Lieut. Maury, U.S.N., 8th Edit. Vol. ii.t
P- 477-

VOL. I. 24

370 DUST IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

Specimens of this dust have, on different occasions,
been submitted to microscopic examination, and have
been found to be composed of infinite numbers of
minute infusoria, and particles of decomposed calcarious
and feruginous rocks and shells.

An enquiry into the nature and composition of "dust"
has of late years opened up an enquiry into many
exceedingly important and curious questions: some of
which have been brought prominently into notice by
the modern germ theory of disease, and although
such considerations are, of course, foreign to our present
subject, we may just spare a moment to take a brief
glance at the question of these countless myriads of
minute particles, which are continually floating in the
air around us, sometimes in a visible form, which we
call "dust," but more often in an invisible form, so
that their existence is unknown and unsuspected by
the great majority of mankind. Most of us, however,
will at one time or another have seen the still air of
a dark room irradiated by a strong ray of light; and
the infinite numbers of particles which are floating
about in it, all of them in perpetual motion, can hardly
have escaped our notice. If we observe them atten-
tively, wre shall see that though some of them appear
to be merely floating in the air, there are others which
may be seen jumping, rotating, and passing to and
fro, in rapid motion; often against the set of the
aerial current, or draught, and the motion of these
latter particles is of so peculiar a nature, that they
can leave no doubt upon the mind of the reflective
student that they consist of living organisms — yet on
admitting the light of day, the atmosphere of that
room will appear perfectly pure, and free from dust:

DUST AS A CAUSE OF HAY FEVER. 371

in fact it probably is freer from dust than the exterior
atmosphere near the earth's surface.

Some remarkable experiments of somewhat analogous
nature to that just described were also recently car-
ried out in London, in connection with the study of
"Hay Fever." The object of them was to ascertain
whether the pollen of certain species of grass (notably
that of " Anthroxanthum Odoratum," a scented grass
that principally gives the delicious aroma to our
British hay), and other flowering plants, which are
known to cause attacks of this affection, when in-
haled by certain persons — could be detected in the
atmosphere of central London. For this purpose
slips of glass, coated with a film of adhesive matter,
were exposed to the air during the hay-making season,
in various parts of London, and the results of a
microscopic examination of the adherent particles proved
that even in the heart of London these glasses were
generally more or less coated by the pollen of such
plants, in considerable abundance. *

Pollen, we need hardly say, is the powdery substance
produced in the stamens of flowering plants, it is one
of the commonest of the vegetable substances found
in the air, and the amount that is sometimes carried
by the wind from place to place, may be judged of
from a fact related by the late Mr. Charles Darwin,
who states that the ground near St. Louis, in Missouri,
has been seen covered with pollen, as if it had been
sprinkled with sulphur, and there is good reason, he

* See Sir Morel Mackenzie on Hay Fever and Paroxysmal Sneezing,
4th Edit. 1887, PP- 45 — 7- (We must, however, remind our readers,
that these two affections are distinct diseases of the mucous membrane,
and that people suffer from the latter form of it who are in no way
affected by hay-making.)

372 SAND-SPOUTS IN THE MONGOLIAN DESERT.

says, to believe this had been transported from the pine
forests lying at least 400 miles to the South. f

Here we must cut short this digression on certain
scientific aspects of " dust, " the object of which, we
need hardly say, has been to impress upon the reader
the extraordinary and apparently illimitable capacity pos-
sessed by the atmosphere, both in calm and in storm, and
whether in a clear, or in a misty state, of carrying par-
ticles of organic and inorganic matter to great distances.

The "red fog" which we have alluded to above,,
probably implies a condition of the atmosphere satur-
ated with dust, carried by the wind from the desert.
In these great sand storms, the wind in the desert
generally veers about in an extraordinary way, and
cross currents, proceeding from opposite directions,
meet, and drive against each other, from perhaps two
or three different quarters at once — and in this way
the whirlwinds or sand-spouts are produced. In the
vortex formed by the meeting of these opposing squalls
the wind would naturally gyrate with extreme violence
and rapidity, raising up, at each point where this
occurs, those tortuous columns of sand and dust, so
frequently described by travellers as " waltzing " across
the surface of the desert.

Mr. Atkinson states, that when traversing the Mon-
golian Desert,

"In the middle of a space sown with innumerable hillocks,
of sand, we saw about thirty of them suddenly raise them-
selves around us, lengthen into long elliptical columns, and
sweep over the surface of the desert with the hissings and
contortions of gigantic serpents. These spouts varied in

* The Effects of Cross and Self -Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom^.
by Charles Darwin, 2nd Edit. 1888, p. 405.

A BLOOD-RED SUN. 373

diameter; the smallest measured between twenty and thirty
feet; a few attained to 100; and one which absorbed in its
vortex all that it approached rose to nearly 200. But soon the
atmospheric forces which had raised them, beginning to fail,
we saw these sand-spouts fall away one after the other, and
form on the surface of the desert a number of hillocks
similar to those from which we had just emerged. " *

During the prevalence of the Simoom, excessive tem-
peratures are not uncommon, as may be seen on refer-
ence to the chapter on Climates and Temperatures,
where these matters are especially considered. These
hot winds prove the more trying" from the fact that,
contrary to the usual rule in the desert, where the
nights are generally cool, and often piercingly cold,
there is little intermission of the great heat by night
while these winds blow.

It is also a curious fact that on the hottest days
the sun is at such times rarely visible, being almost
always shut out by mist, f or if visible through the
cloud of sand, it appears of a deep red colour and
greatly exaggerated in size, doubtless because viewed
through the medium of a more or less thick curtain
of dust — even when no violent sand storm, such as
we have just described, is blowing ; this is a condition
of things that may exist for many days together
during the prevalence of the Simoom, and there can
be little doubt that when the sun is described, in
the Sacred Writings, as being " turned into blood "
it is to this condition of the atmosphere that reference
is made.

The experience of the surveying parties, employed

* Travels on the Russo-C.hincse Frontier, by T. W. Atkinson.
j Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853, p. 47.

374 PHENOMENA OF GREAT DRY HEAT.

upon the surveys for the projected Soudan railway,
was, that the months of April and May, which is the
height of the Simoom season, were on the whole hotter
than the month of June, though they found the average
temperature of the latter month to be over 100° Fahr.,
the highest registered temperature of the year being
115° F. in the shade, which occurred early in May. *
During these great heats, such is the intense hot dryness
of the air that they tell us all objects felt hot to the
touch, even to the paper on which they were writing ;
and all woollen articles became so strongly charged
with electricity, that blankets when drawn over each
other, blazed up like sheet lightning in the dark tents,
and people drew crackling sparks from their beards,
when drying themselves after a bath, f

Count D'Escayrac de Lauture also found that the
skin becomes scaly, while the transpiration, excessive
at first, is arrested. It reappears after drinking, but
only for a moment, while the thirst is naturally ex-
cessive and the stomach can bear only very light
nourishment. Slight headaches are also apt to be
produced, but otherwise the health is not in general
injuriously affected: on the contrary "wounds and
ulcers," he says, "heal with wonderful rapidity, and
many malarial and other affections disappear entirely- -
dysentery alone appearing to become aggravated,
and some risk of " heat apoplexy " may also be oc-
casioned." § Such seems to be the general consensus of
opinion among travellers with regard to these hot winds.

* N.B. — During the Soudan Campaign of 1896 higher temperatures
than this were registered, up to 122° F.

t Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, pp. 15 and 16.

§ Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
1853, p. 48.

THE ZONE OF MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES. 375

A few words upon the sun temperatures must not
be omitted. Throughout the Desert Zone, the solar
rays seem to acquire their maximum intensity; and
it would be perhaps hardly possible by a mere
verbal description to convey an adequate idea of
their power : the nearest approach to it being* probably
experienced when visiting an iron foundry, upon the
opening of the furnace doors ; indeed, the simile " like
the breath of a furnace " seems to be the regulation
metaphor adopted by most writers for expressing their
idea of the intensity of these desert heats, and it is
notorious that the highest temperatures in the world
have been registered in these regions. The scorching
effect of the sun's rays in a perfectly dry atmosphere
is a matter which has already been commented upon
and explained in the chapter on " Climates and Tempera-
tures," so that it will be unnecessary to discuss that
view of the question at present.

The exceeding transparence and purity of the desert
air, of course, afford full scope for the transmission
of heat, and the refraction from the bare sand and
stones also greatly contributes to magnify its scorching
effects to a degree that becomes well nigh insupport-
able ; it is one of those things in fact which must be ex-
perienced in a man's own person before its fiery
intensity can be fully realized.

All rock, stones and metal work, such as gun barrels,
etc., become so exceedingly hot, under its influence,
that it is impossible to lay the naked hand upon them,
and the feet appear to be treading upon heated embers,
or rather as if wading in a sand furnace; * lucifer
matches also can be lit by touching the sand with them,

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 17.

376 THE HOUR OF MAXIMUM HEAT.

and Sir Samuel Baker expressly warns travellers, in
these climates, of the danger of carrying them at all
in their baggage, for fear of their becoming ignited
and destroying the contents. *

During the progress of the surveys for the
Soudan railway the engineers tell us that " people who
worked with metal instruments, without gloves, got
their fingers blistered — the mahogany tripods of the
instruments were painfully hot, and an eyelid, placed
too near the brass work of a telescope, was blistered :
— this was, of course," adds Mr. Falkonberg, C.E, "in
the sun temperatures between 150° and 180° Fahr." f
The French traveller Duveyrier found even higher
temperatures than these in the Sahara.

We might go on, were that desirable, to mention
circumstance after circumstance in amplification of
these details, respecting the extraordinary intensity of
the sun's power in the Desert Zone; but we think
that this would hardly add anything to the significance
of what has been already stated.

Though the hour of maximum thermometric heat is
about 3 p.m., it has been frequently remarked, that it is
the slanting rays of the sun, towards sunset, which are
found most trying; the Soudan railway surveyors
confirm this opinion, and found that on these occasions
"the sun hit them everywhere," as they turned about
their instruments, and the lower the sun declined the
more they seemed to feel it.§ This, of course, only

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Saml. W. Baker, 1867,
p. 541. (Safety matches are less likely to ignite spontaneously, than
common lucifers.)

f Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 16. ("Solymos" was the
Arab name given to Mr. Falkonberg, the chief engineer.)

§ Ibid., pp. 9—18.

COLOURED GLASSES FOR SUN GLARE. 377

shows that the human frame is a bad indicator as to
actual temperature, because the heat of the rays of
the setting sun are really far less powerful than those
of the sun in the meridian. The closing in of night,
however, brings instant and complete relief from all these
troubles and proves a welcome blessing to the wayfarer.

Travellers will find coloured glasses, or goggles, a
great relief to the eyes, from the refraction of the
sun's fiery glare. They actually seem to make it feel
less hot. Though less restful, neutral tint glasses have
the advantage over the deeper coloured kinds of not
interfering with seeing; blue has been found a better
tint than green as a rest to the sight. It would be
too long to consider here the much debated question
of the best means of protecting the head, spine, etc.,
from the sun during desert marches, which is an art
in itself.

We may, however, just briefly mention that the best
of all head-dresses for Europeans in our opiniofi is the
Indian pith or Sola-reed helmet which, being very light,
should be quite half an inch thick; while the spine
should be protected by a thick pad of cotton, sewn to
the clothes down the centre of the back. A loose
white Arab " burnous " (a species of short cloak), which
hangs from the shoulders, affords considerable protection
from the sun. This burnous has a hood which can be
drawn over the head at the will of the wearer. The
Bedouin dress always comprises a turban and burnous
fitted with a hood of this description, the head being
further protected by a thick rope of camel's hair wound
around the temples. A " cummerbund " or waist girdle
is also useful to protect the stomach, and to afford
support to the back during the fatigue of camel riding.

378 THE EGYPTIAN EMBALMER'S ART.

The remarkable effects of the combination of intense
heat and drought in these regions, in arresting the
progress of decomposition of animal tissues, to which
we before alluded, are well illustrated in the case
of the ancient Egyptian mummies, concerning which
we must find space to say a few words. In damp
climates of course the conservation of those remains,
during thousands of years, would necessarily be impos-
sible— even were it desirable. The art of embalming,
we need hardly say, arose out of the religious belief
in the future resurrection of the body, and as the body
was to live again it followed as a logical sequence that
no pains could be esteemed to be too great which could
contribute to preserve these frail remnants of mortality
both so as to ensure their unbroken rest and their
immunity from decay — and there can be no doubt that it
is to these selfsame causes that we owe the creation of
those enormous structures, the Pyramids, as well as most
of the other great works of Egyptian antiquity, which date
from what at present seems to be the da\vn of history.

The tremendous waste of human life that the execu-
tion of these gigantic works, under a system of forced
labour, involved, is a matter of history. The living
being sacrificed to the dead in this wholesale manner,
so greatly excited the abhorrence of the Mohammedans,
that to their honour be it said, they have to this day
always designated the pyramids as "ElHardm " — signify-
ing in Arabic "The Forbidden" or "The offence against
religion" — for it may now be accepted as a matter of
ascertained fact that the Pyramids were created "as
tombs, and nothing but tombs. " * The investigations

* See Murray's Handbook for Egypt, 8th Edit. 1891, p. 235.

EGYPTIAN MUMMIES. 379

of the late learned Mariette Pasha and others seem to
be decisive upon this point.

Then as regards the process of embalming. When
a great man died it was accounted necessary that
the body should be thus preserved for the reasons
already stated, though the return to lye of the discarded
remnants of mortality, bearing withm themselves the
seeds of mortal disease and decrepitude, was like the
putting on again of a worn-out garment, no longer
fitted for its wearer's use.

The body, however, having been placed in the hands
of the embalmers, who formed a regular guild in ancient
Egypt, was then, according to the account handed
down to us by Herodotus, * opened, the intestines
removed, and the cavities of the body filled with myrrh,
cassia, and other perfumes ; it was then sewn up again,
and steeped for seventy days in "Natron" — that is to
say in Saltpetre or impure Nitrate of Potash — and
it was upon this pickling process, we need hardly
say, that the success of the embalming mainly depended—
for the effects of spices and perfumes would have been
without avail — and at the expiration of the seventy
days (this being the limit of the period during which
it was lawful to steep the body) it was wrapped
in bandages, smeared over with certain fragrant
gums to exclude the air. The process was then
complete.

The intense dryness of the climate and the drifting
sands of the desert did the rest, and the mummies
were then laid to rest in magnificently ornamented
cases, in sepulchral chambers mostly hewn in the solid
rock, known among the ancient Egyptians as " The

* See Herodotus, Book II ("Euterpe"), cap. 86.

380 EGYPTIAN ROCK-CUT TOMBS.

Eternal Abode, " for according to the historian Diodorus
Siculus the house of the living was regarded by the
Egyptians merely as "an hostelry." It mattered little
in their opinions what became of it * ; but the tomb,
on which they lavished all their powers of ornamenta-
tion, was the place of permanent abode. Then came
the drifting sand, which blew in from the desert, and
covered everything over, so that for thousands of years
it has hermetically sealed up these wonderful places
of sepulture, so that many of them have been thus
preserved inviolate, not only from desecration by
human plunderers, but from the effects of atmospheric
changes, to the present day, with all their ornamenta-
tion, paintings and inscriptions still existing as clearly
cut and as bright and fresh as upon the day when
the mummy was placed there.

As regards the wonderful completeness of this
process of preservation through the exclusion of the atmo-
sphere by the sand drift, we may mention a remarkable
instance of the way in which even the most unstable
impressions may be preserved, when undisturbed. It
was noticed by some of the explorers, on entering for
the first time into some of these ancient sepulchral
chambers, hitherto unviolated, that the footprints of
the slaves who had carried in the mummies, thousands
of years before, still remained visible upon the sand
which covered the floors, f

It would be beyond the scope of this work to enter

*" The Koran has very beautifully expressed its views upon the future
state as follows towards the close of Sura xix : " Verily this present
life is no other than a toy or a plaything, but the future mansion of
paradise — that shall be life indeed." (See Sale's Koran, and other
English translations).

t See Nile Gleanings, by Villiers Stuart, M.P., 1880, p. 31.

DISCOVERY OF ROYAL MUMMIES. 381

into any lengthened statements respecting Egyptian
antiquities, or the subject of mummies in general.
We need only refer to recent great discoveries of
Royal mummies, at Deir-El-Bahari, near Thebes, which
occurred in July 1881, a short account of which will
embody every point of interest.

The contents of the vault when discovered, were
found to consist of thirty-six Royal mummies enclosed
in splendidly gilt and decorated caskets, and an immense
number of funeral offerings and other articles, such as
Osiris statuettes, boxes, chests, vases, papyri, etc., be-
longing to the XVII, XVIII and XIX Dynasties,*
which covers one of the most brilliant epochs in Egyp-
tian history. Prominent among these may be mentioned
the mummy of Thothmes III of the XVIII Dynasty,
one of the greatest conquerors Egypt ever produced ;
and of Ramses II of the XIX Dynasty, better known
as " The Pharaoh of the Israelitish oppression " and also
as the great " Sesostris " of the Greek historians, who
is supposed to have lived about 1330 years before the
Christian era. The mummy of this celebrated man,
without doubt the greatest figure in the long line of the
Pharaohs,! who died at the immense age of nearly 100
years, and who is said to have reigned over Egypt for a
period of sixty-seven years, was unrolled by order of the
Khedive in June, 1886. It is described as being "ex-
tremely well preserved, and one of the best examples of
the Egyptian embalmers' art." § It is now in the Museum
of Antiquities at Gizeh, near Cairo, and the face, as
those who, like ourselves, have had the privilege of

* See Baedeker's Handbook for Upper Egypt, 1892, p. 229.

f Encycl. Brit.) gth Edit., vol. vii., p. 739.

§ Murray's^ Handbook for Egypt, 8th Edit., 1891, p. ig8d.

382 PHARAOH THE OPPRESSOR.

viewing it, can attest, after the lapse of considerably
more than 3000 years since his death, could in all prob-
ability be still easily recognised by anyone who had
known him in life. The attitude and expression is
that of dignified repose and the face still bears the
traces of considerable intellect, and possesses a somewhat
aristocratic cast of countenance, with high forehead,
sharply chiselled features, and curved nose. In some
of the other mummies, however, the process of em-
balmment had proved less successful, and they crumbled
to dust on being opened.

We cannot call to mind any circumstance that has
ever come under our notice, which exhibits in so
striking a manner the strange vicissitudes which time
produces, or the hollowness of human greatness and
glory, as this exhibition of the mouldering remains of
a once renowned sovereign (as a public show), who had
formerly ruled over the land with absolutely despotic
power, at a time wrhen Egypt was justly regarded as
the mistress of the east. These sentiments have been
so well expressed in some verses, written upon the
subject of this celebrated mummy by a young Australian
poetess (who was herself soon afterwards snatched away
by death in the flower of her youth), that we have no
hesitation in reproducing the opening lines, which run
as follows :—

"Pharaoh Lives for Ever"

[Lines suggested by a Photo of the mummy of
Ramses the Great.]

•"Most Mighty Monarch can it ever be
That thou, sun of sun's, giv'r of life, shall be,
Torn from thy tomb, thine unguent scented shrouds,
And set, drear sight of death, to gaping crowds,

ANCIENT FUNERAL GARLANDS. 383

While safely hidden in their unknown graves,

In quiet sleep the meanest of thy slaves.

"For Pharaoh lives for ever!" their taskmen cried:
"For ever Pharaoh lives!" thy slaves replied:

And with the lie upon their lips they died."*

And so this is the ultimate result of all his regal
splendour. He, whose word was once actually law
to millions of the human race. Well may we ask our-
selves : What would be the feelings of the dead King,
could he only come back again, to see himself as he
is now seen — the occupant of a show-case in the
Hall of the Royal Mummies in the National Museum
of Egypt?

A few more details illustrating the wonderfully pre-
servative effects of the dry climate of Egypt and we
have done. It was the custom, at the funerals of the
great, in those days, to decorate the mummy with
garlands of flowers, and when the coffins were opened,
they were found to be filled with these floral offerings,
and though the bodies had in some cases mouldered
into dust, the flowers with which they had been decorated
were so wonderfully preserved, that in many cases
their colours were still perfectly distinguishable, " and
looked as if they had only recently been dried; yet
a flower is the very type of ephemeral beauty that
passeth away, and is gone, almost as soon as born." f
Several varieties, however, were able to be recognised,
and the plants they were taken from named by Professor
Schweinfurth : § among others were the blue lotus

* In Sunshine and Shadow, MSS. poems by Miss Inez. K. Hyland,
publ. Melbourne 1893, P- 4-

f Egypt After the War, by Villiers Stuart, M.P., 1883, p. 185.
§ Baedeker's Handbook for Upper Egypt, 1892, p. 229.

384 ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SARCOPHAGI.

flower, and those of the yellow mimosa, which are still
common in Egypt; whilst other varieties were found
to be from plants that do not grow in Egypt at the
present day. Curiously enough also, when the coffin
of Amenhotep, a King of the xvin Dynasty who
lived quite 3500 years ago, came to be opened, it
was found that a wasp, which had evidently settled
upon the flowers when the coffin was being closed,
had been shut in and still existed, dried up, but quite
perfect, the insect having lasted better than the King,
who lay in regal state beneath.*

It will therefore scarcely be surprising to find that
the woodwork of many of these coffins, together with
the gilding, paintings, and varnishing, with which
they were all magnificently decorated, both inside
and out, are still in a most complete state of preser-
vation and apparently as bright and perfect as if the
work had only just been executed. Some of the portraits
of the occupants are admirably painted. In one
instance the face of a beautiful girl is preserved in this
way, who, from her features, might have been quite
a good-looking English girl of the present era.

When the coffins containing these royal mummies
and the treasures brought to light in this famous find,
had been taken to Luxor, and placed on board a vessel
for conveyance to Cairo, an affecting instance of loyal
attachment to the memory of the illustrious dead was
exhibited by the poor fellahin of Egypt, such as is
probably unique in history.

As the vessel containing the remains of their ancient
sovereigns started upon its journey, its departure was
witnessed by a vast crowd of natives assembled upon

* Egyft After the War, by Villiers Stuart, M.P., 1883, p. 185.

THE TRADITIONS OF NATIONAL GLORY. 385

both banks of the Nile. The women, with dishevelled
hair, uttering plaintive cries, and wailing, according to
the ancient custom of eastern mourners ; whilst the
men fired off guns, as when rendering the last honours
at the funeral of some distinguished personage ; and
the vessel was thus escorted as far as Koptos, a distance
of some thirty miles down the river. *

As Mr. Villiers Stuart has remarked — "surely a more
touching tribute was never paid them, even at the
height of their power, than this spontaneous outburst
of feeling from the hearts of the people. After cen-
turies of oppression, they still cherished traditions of
the splendid past, when monarchs of their own led
them to victory, and made their country, through long
ages, the mistress of the East. " f

This incident shows how immortal are the traditions
of national glory. More enduring than the marble
that builds the shrine, its lustre is undimmed by the
lapse of ages. Empires have risen and fallen — great
nations have been born, have nourished, and passed
away, whilst these mighty men of old slept fast, in
that great untroubled sleep of more than 3000 years ;
during which the deathless fame of these ancient heroes
still lived unforgotten and untarnished, in the hearts
of the people.

Remarkable, too, is the fact that though the reigns
of these princes were generally stormy — and though
the world itself may then have seemed too small for
their ambition, and though extravagance, misrule and
oppression were the general characteristics of their govern-
ment— the records of their faults and their follies have been

* See Baedeker's Handbook for UpJ>er Egyjpt, 1892, p, 29.

f Egypt After the War, by Villiers Stuart, M.P., 1883, p. 172.

VOL. I. 25

386 MIRAGE.

forgotten, whilst that which was great among them
has proved immortal.

So may it be with us all.

Among the phenomena witnessed in countries subject
to the influence of a powerful sun, that of mirage is
undoubtedly one of the most notable. It is, however,
by no means confined to sandy deserts, as is generally
supposed, though it is often seen there in its most
strikingly wonderful forms, being evidently created by
waves of highly rarified air, thrown off by the intensely
heated ground.

Mirage is, therefore, always strongest close to the
surface of the earth, where its vibrations have the effect
of so greatly distorting all natural objects in the land-
scape, that their transformation is often so complete as
to produce an optical illusion of the most remarkable
kind. Mirage may, however, be seen on the surface
of water, in lakes, and lagoons, and even at sea it is
by no means uncommon. Thus, not long ago the news-
papers reported the loss of the American barquantine
'Steadfast' wrecked on the island of St. Croix, while
on her way from Trinidad to Philadelphia with a cargo
of asphalt. The crew report that the wreck was
caused by mirage, which made the island seem many
miles away, when the vessel was close to the reefs. " *

We may also mention that while crossing the great
Australian Bight, we have ourselves been a witness
to one of the most wonderful instances of marine
mirage which could be imagined. The event took
place from 5 to 6 p.m. on January iith, 1895, when
our ship was over 100 miles from any land. The

* The Times of Nov. nth, 1891, p. 13.

MIRAGE AT SEA. 387

low dark outline of a distant coast seemed to encircle
the vessel, about 3 miles away (apparently), little
hills and clumps of trees seemingly growing on the
hill sides were clearly seen. At one place a large
black pillar like that of some great building, rose directly
out of the sea, which some on board thought to be a
water spout. Finally a line of surf, exactly like
heavy white breakers beating upon the coast, seemed
to burst over nearly the whole of this phantom land,
and presently the whole panorama disappeared like a
mist, after remaining visible a little over one hour —
leaving the offing quite clear, without a single object
in sight but the restless ocean.*

Mirage may, in fact, occur, under certain conditions
of the atmosphere, almost anywhere; and at times it
assumes every sort of fantastic shape. Sometimes
inverted representations of trees and other terrestrial
objects appear, as it were, floating in the air upside
down. At other times the same objects are evidently mul-
tiplied as if several times reflected, one above the other,
the intervals being apparently occupied by sheets of water.

Visions of phantom waters are, in fact, one of the
most common illusions in mirage, and occasionally
refraction is so powerful as to render every natural
feature of the landscape entirely invisible — the surface
in such cases appearing to be submerged beneath
the glittering waters of a shallow lake, above which
some of the larger objects protrude, as if its surface
was studded with numerous islands: — even the heads
of camels and other animals are sometimes seen on

* Personal observations taken by the Author on board the P. & O.
R.M.S. 'Arcadia,' 6800 tons, Capt. A. C. Loggin, off South Coast of
Australia, January nth, 1895, in about Lat. 35° 40' S., Long. 132° 30' E.

388 MIRAGE LANDSCAPES.

these occasions, as if swimming in the water, beneath
which their bodies are completely hidden from view.

The most beautiful effects are often produced, conjuring
up images of distant views of lovely scenery, such as
sheets of water bordered by groves of beautiful trees,
where nothing exists but a waste of burning sand ; or
again the mimic scenery may represent the stately outlines
of ancient castles, palaces, cathedrals, and other buildings
erected by human hands — thus affording a practical
illustration of the poetic idea of " castles in the air. "

All these things, however, are nevertheless in all
probability merely distorted images of natural objects,
having an actual existence in the landscape, reproduced
as already mentioned in an exaggerated form by the
vibrations of highly heated, rarefied atmosphere — thus
a flat waste of sand sparkling in the intense light of
the solar rays, or a plain somewhat whitened by saline
efflorescence, is made to represent the glassy surface of
a lake ; while a thorny fringe of dwarf acacias, or other
shrubs, and even tufts of grass, become magnified and
made to do duty for belts of fertile woodlands growing
upon its banks; so also rocks and other irregularities
of surface may readily be conceived to form the
fabric out of which a city of palaces appears to rise,
as if by enchantment, from the stony wilderness.

To the untutored minds of the desert nomads, of
course, such things can only be accounted for by sup-
posing them to be the work of evil spirits : and prob-
ably nothing has done more than the phenomena of
the mirage to invest the oriental mind with a super-
stitious belief in genii and other supernatural agencies.
The mirage in fact is often spoken of among the Arabs
as the " Bahr-es-Sheitdn? or "The Waters of Satan. *

THE WATERS OF LETHE. 389

We may also state that in the course of our studies
on these and kindred subjects, it has often struck us
that the origin of the famous Greek mythological idea,
of " LETHE". (toifa Mop), or "The Waters of Oblivion,"
also took its rise from the phenomenon of the mirage.
These remarkable phantasma of the desert, as we have
already shown, conjure up all sorts of delusive repre-
sentations, only, as if in mockery, to snatch them away
again from the beholder's view, leaving the bare
surface of the " Bahr-Bela-Ma, " or " Waterless Sea" of
the Arab writers, alone remaining, as the stage whereon
they had been just before displayed.

So also, according to the poetical fancy of the ancient
belief, these waters of the stream of Hades, once car-
ried to the lips, caused those who drank of them
straightway to forget everything they had seen or heard
or done, in a previous state of existence (it may be
with a nearer approximation to truth than any of us
fancy). These things washed out by the waters of
oblivion, disappeared like the phantoms of the mirage,
as completely as though they had never been: — pre-
cisely as the spectres of the desert vanish from the
fevered gaze of the weary traveller. The idea, how-
ever, of memory being blotted out by water during a
future existence, is one which runs through some of
the very earliest records of mankind, and it existed
in the ancient Egyptian mythology at a very remote
period. Thus water has among other things been
supposed to be capable of washing away the memory
of offences, so that they become effaced and as 'if
they had never existed.

The strange phenomena of the mirage could hardly
fail to produce a profound impression upon the unedu-

390 ANIMALS AND THE MIRAGE.

cated mind, represented as they are with such won-
derful realistic effect, that it is hard for the spectator
to persuade himself that the whole thing is simply a
phantom scene, set upon the stage of the great theatre
of Nature; and an optical illusion only.

Remarkable, therefore, is the fact that however com-
pletely these unreal pictures may impose upon the
boasted superiority of our human senses; they have
never been known to do so upon the supposed duller
instincts of the wild animals, who are the inhabitants
of the wastes. Dogs are alleged to have been some-
times deceived by it, but this is a doubtful point and
may have arisen from the animals wandering off in
search of water. It is well known that dogs and
pigeons will occasionally take the reflexion of them-
selves in a mirror which is held up before them, for
that of some other member of their fraternity. The
author, on one occasion, nearly had a valuable pier
glass smashed, when playing this trick upon a favourite
bull terrier. Still, after a careful examination of this
curious subject, he has been unable to find any trace
of an instance where wild animals are known to have
been deceived by mirage : yet it is hardly to be supposed
that the images of cooling waters and sheltering groves,
would be invisible to their penetrating gaze; or that
what is so plainly visible to the human eye, could be
hidden from the eyes of the thirsty camel or the desert
antelope.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding his superior genius
and wisdom, man seems, of all created beings, to be
the most easily taken in by it, and many instances
have been from time to time recorded of his falling
a victim to his own delusions by following these

AN EGYPTIAN REGIMENT LOST IN THE SAND. 391

phantoms of the desert, only to find that they are
nothing. One might, for instance, have supposed that
in Egypt, at any rate, everybody would have been
more or less familiar with mirage, and that people
would have been less liable there, than elsewhere, to
be deceived by it, yet Sir Samuel Baker in his " Nile
Tributaries of Abyssinia " relates the story of the total
loss of an Egyptian regiment in this way. This
catastrophe occurred about 1820 on the section of
desert between Korosko and Abou Hammed, of which
we have already spoken : where the caravan route cuts
across the chord of the arc formed by the great
bend of the Nile between these points. Sir Samuel
Baker gives the following account of the disaster:

"Many years ago, when the Egyptian troops first conquered
Nubia, a regiment was destroyed by thirst in crossing this
desert. The men being upon a limited allowance of water,
suffered from extreme thirst, and deceived by the appearance
of a mirage that exactly resembled a beautiful lake, they
insisted upon being taken to its banks by the Arab guide.
It was in vain that the guide assured them that the lake
was unreal, and he refused to lose the precious time by
wandering from his course. Words led to blows, and he was
killed by the soldiers whose lives depended upon his guidance.
The whole regiment turned from the track, and rushed
towards the welcome waters. Thirsty and faint, over the
burning sands they hurried .... farther and farther from the
lost track where the pilot lay in his blood: and still the
mocking spirits of the desert, the afreets of the mirage, led
them on, and the lake glistening in the sunshine tempted
them to bathe in its cool waters, close to their eyes, but
never at their lips. At length the delusion vanished— the
fatal lake had turned to burning sand!" — "Not a man
ever left the desert, but they were subsequently discovered,

392 THE KORAN ON THE MIRAGE.

parched and withered corpses, by the Arabs sent upon the
search. *

Here the remarkable words of the Koran instinc-
tively rise up before the mind's eye, where the Moslem
prophet skilfully availing" himself of the apparently
supernatural phenomenon of the mirage, so constantly
witnessed by his followers in these sun-stricken regions,
thus figuratively applies it to represent the state of
the infidel and says, " The works of the incredulous
are like the mirage (Es Serdb] of the plain; the
thirsty man taketh it for water, until he draweth nigh
unto it, and then he findeth that it is nothing." f

The angle of refraction, in fact, becomes altered
as the observer shifts his position, till at length the
illusion dispels itself by suddenly vanishing, and
instead of cooling waters, the dry and barren desert
stands revealed as one vast sandy ocean, covering the
face of Nature.

Such is sometimes the effect of seeing things from
a different point of view! How often do we find it
so in everyday life, and see people chasing some
phantom, the supposed ideal of complete felicity, only
to discover, should some few of them succeed in ap-
proaching it, that it vanishes like the mirage, or else
turns out to be something altogether different to what
they expected.

Probably one of the most remarkable instances on
record, of travellers being deceived by the mirage,
is quoted in the History of Australian Exploration, as
occurring on the borders of Lake Torrens, South

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel Baker, 1867,
pp. 12 and 13.

•j- The Koran of Mahomet. Sura xxv.

SURVEYORS DECEIVED BY MIRAGE. 393

Australia, in April 1857, when an exploring party,
conducted by the Deputy Surveyor General of the
colony, was completely taken in by it. Ascending to
the summit of a hill " to the north he saw a belt of
gigantic gum trees beyond which appeared a sheet of
water, with elevated lands on the far side, wiiile to
the east was another large lake." These on further
examination, however, were found to consist, the gigantic
trees of stunted bushes, and the elevated lands, of
clods of earth. But the greatest surprise was when the
party reached Lake Torrens. The water was found
to be quite fresh, and appeared to stretch away "for
fifteen or twenty miles to the north west, with a
water horizon; there was an extensive bay to the
southward, while to the north a bluff headland, and
perpendicular cliffs were clearly discerned by a telescope. "
But having no boats with which to navigate the lake, the
surveyor returned to Adelaide to report his discovery
which created great rejoicing, as the northern frontier
had till then been supposed to be a waterless desert.
The Surveyor General immediately started, with boats,
to explore the newly-found waters. The public
disappointment at Adelaide may be imagined, when
a letter was received from this officer reporting that
"the cliffs, the headlands, and the grassy shores were
all built upon the basis of the mirage," and that the
lake had already receded half a mile, and was in no
place over six inches deep, being evidently a mere
flooded lagoon. *

Before dismissing these phenomena of the desert

* The History of Australian Exploration, 1788 to 1888, compiled
from State documents by Ernest Favense, published Sydney 1889, pp.
189 and 190.

394 JUDGING DISTANCES IN THE DESERT.

from our consideration, it is, we think, desirable to
remind the reader how greatly the extreme transpar-
ency of the atmosphere, the spacious grandeur, uni-
formity and emptiness, of these boundless plains, tend
to produce various kinds of optical illusions.

This is very forcibly brought home to the mind
when attempting to estimate the distances, or dimensions,
of objects seen in the landscape. There is generally
nothing to guide the eye, and for want of any standard
of comparison, everything appears to be much nearer
than it is in reality. All guesses respecting distance,
etc., are therefore sure to prove very wide of the mark.
Thus mountains which, at sunrise, stand out with
extreme distinctness against the sky line, at apparently
no very great distance away, will often actually seem
to recede before the traveller, throughout the day's
march, and not uncommonly disappear altogether during
the afternoon, in the quivering haze refracted from the
heated ground, but only to reappear again the next morn-
ing, as if they had again advanced to meet the observer.

This phenomenon which is probably familiar to most
travellers who have had much experience in plains-
travel, is peculiarly noticeable upon the extensive table
lands lying near the base of the Andes in South
America, where the Cordilleras often appear to rise
out of the plain a short distance ahead, while in point
of fact they may be 60 or 70 miles away.

In the peculiarly clear atmosphere existing upon dry
elevated plains, mountains are frequently visible at
distances which would be thought incredible in damp
tropical or temperate climates, where the horizon is
always more or less misty.

From the decks of steamers proceeding along the

DISTANT VIEWS OF MOUNTAINS. 395

western coast of South America, for instance, magni-
ficent views of the Cordilleras are almost constantly
visible ; the outlines of these sublime heights standing
out with marvellous distinctness in the serene and
often cloudless atmosphere ; yet as a rule they cannot
be less than from 100 to 120 miles distant, and at times
considerably more than this. The same thing has been
noticed by travellers in approaching the Himalayas
from the plains of Northern India, for we are assured
on competent authority that the snowy peaks of this
gigantic mountain range "are, under favourable cir-
cumstances, visible from the plains, at a distance of
about 200 miles. " *

On the other hand it will be easily understood that
when there is mirage, or haze upon the horizon, far
off objects, such as distant mountains, may be entirely
shut out from view. A man, for instance, may some-
times reside at Dover or Folkestone, for weeks, without
seeing the coast of France, which is plainly visible on
favourable days. In the same way Mr. Stanley in his
late work upon the " Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, "
when alluding to this subject says :

" It requires a peculiar condition of the atmosphere to see
mountains from a distance of 70 miles: — in such a humid
region as this is, on a bright day, such a quantity of vapour
is exhaled from the heated earth that at 30 miles it would
be intensified into a haze no eye could penetrate. But at
certain times, wind currents clear the haze and expose to
view objects which we wonder we have not seen before.
Returning to Fort Bodo, I took compass bearings of a lofty
mountain and I noted it down, but I have never seen it
since, though I have been twice over the ground. " f

* Encyclop. Brit., gth Edit., Vol xi., p. 324.

f In Darkest Africa, by H. M. Stanley, 1890, Vol i., p. 407.

396 PHENOMENA OF THE DESERT NIGHT.

A few words upon the phenomena of the desert night
will bring this branch of our subject to a close. It is
the period of the twenty-four hours, when, according to
common consent among travellers in these regions, per-
fect enjoyment crowns the labours of the long and
sultry day with gladness, bringing with it a feeling of
ineffable repose and peace. The transition from the
fiery splendour of the day is of course a thing quickly
accomplished in these latitudes: twilight being confined
to a few brief moments only: — and except during the
prevalence of hot winds, the advent of the night is
succeeded by a complete and immediate relief from
the exhausting heat of day — and there are no mos-
quitoes or other insect pests to give trouble in the Desert
Zone, except perhaps in a few of the oases, the air
being too dry for these creatures.

The rapid fall of the thermometer which follows
sunset, is a matter fully commented on in the section
on "Climates and Temperatures" as being a universal
and necessary consequence of the extreme dryness of
the desert air; where even dew is often found to be
completely or almost completely, absent; as evidenced
by the well-known fact, testified to by many travel-
lers, that firearms may, during the dry season, be left
upon the bare ground, night after night, without con-
tracting a particle of rust. *

Throughout the sand plains, the dry sand which has

* Thus in a letter of the Times Correpondent with the Soudan
Expedition of 1896 it is related that the caravan he was travelling with
discovered the skeleton of an Arab, supposed to have died of thirst in
the desert. Near the body was found a military rifle which was
afterwards identified as having been stolen some two years before from
one of the Soudanese Regiments. The wood work of it was much blanched
by weather, but the barrel and iron work were quite free 'from rust.
Seethe Times of June 2nd, 1896.

THE EARLY MORNING COLD. 397

been heated to perhaps 130° or 140° Fahr. during
the day, retains its heat for a long1 time, and even
when it cools upon the surface, feels quite warm two
or three inches below it when turned over. In rocky
districts also, the hot stones continue to give out a
sensible degree of heat for many hours after sunset :
indeed for a considerable time afterwards, the incau-
tious traveller sitting down upon a rock in thin clothes,
is often startled to find it most unpleasantly hot.
Nevertheless, though everything may be glowing like
a furnace at sundown; the atmosphere rapidly co9ls
down, and the nights are therefore generally cool and
pleasant, and towards morning especially, not unfre-
quently become bitterly cold. Sultry and oppressive
nights, when they occur, are usually experienced only
during the prevalence of the hot winds.

The sudden diminution of temperature in dry regions,
by night, is, however, a matter which every prudent
traveller will do well to guard against by following
the fashionable custom, even in these wild solitudes,
of " dressing for the evening " in garments suitable
to the occasion. The frame debilitated by the exhausting
heat of day is keenly sensitive to chill — and he will
be apt to find the protection of thick warm things,
and even an ulster, none too much for him; some
travellers have even gone so far as to recommend
furs. Mr. Falkonberg, one of the engineers employed
upon the survey of the proposed Soudan Railway, for
instance, bitterly complains of the bad advice with which
he was favoured by inexperienced friends, when making
up his kit for the Egyptian Soudan, and says: —

" Our great surprise was to find the nights in December
and January as cold as 45° F., on a rough average, never

398 FROSTS IN THE DESERT.

so much as 50°, and in three nights as near the freezing
point as 38^°, 37-!° and 36°. My first annoyance was due
to an error all are liable to. I asked and listened to some
one I had thought expert, persuading me to leave in London
the furs I desired to bring. I am often favoured with advice
of this kind before starting on journeys" *
and unfortunately errors of this sort cannot afterwards
be remedied by the traveller.

Mr. Falkonberg goes on to give a resume of the
experiences of former travellers in this respect, and
states that " Duveyrier registers frost twenty-six times
between December and March, in the plains of the
Central Sahara. Bromfield speaks of sharp hoar frost,
and ice a quarter of an inch thick, at Rhoda, on the
Nile, in 28° Lat. The Imperial Gazetteer says as
much about Syene. Durham and Clapperton mention
hard frost, occurring at 13° Lat. in the Southern
Sahara. Captain Lyon records six degrees of frost
in the Libyan deserts," and so forth, f

These vast dry plains are also visited by piercingly
cold winds during the winter season — these Northers
appear to be prevalent at this season of the year
everywhere throughout the Desert Zone in the northern
hemisphere, and corresponding phenomena are also
met with in the southern hemisphere, during their
winter season. Mr. Falkonberg states in the Nile
Deserts that during the first two months of his service
there (Dec. 1875 and Jan. 1876) these winds blew
steadily for several hours in the mornings — this
qualification of the expression " burning desert, " he
reminds us, does not seem generally known, — the

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, pp. 12, 13.
\ Ibid., p. II.

PIERCING DRY WINDS. 399

intensity of the cold being such that he says "rugs
alone, especially cloth rugs, are 'nowhere' in this
weather," and he appends in a footnote, some sarcastic
observations, respecting " the learned and expert gentle-
men who undertook to furnish a stately paper on the
' Personal Equipment of Officers ' in a volume of the
United Service Institution where they say offhand,
* one needs no warm clothes whatever in Egypt.' " *
Our own personal experience is, that without proper
warm clothing, people run a very good chance of
getting congestion of the lungs, and perhaps becoming
dangerously ill. In Spain, which is very subject to
these keen dry winds, the Spaniards have a proverb,
often used in Madrid, to the effect that

"El aire de Madrid es tan sotil

Que mata a un hombre, y no apaga a un candil,"
that is, " So subtle is the air of Madrid, that it kills
a man, and does not put out a candle." Such is a
literal fact, within our own cognizance. Instances,
we regret to say, are not uncommon, of a beautiful
Spanish girl going out to a ball, during the prevalence
of these icy winds, being struck down by pneumonia
on returning home, and being dead and buried within
a week. So also in the Egyptian deserts, with an
intensely bright hot sun, there is sometimes an air so
keen, that the instant one enters the shade it cuts
like a razor, and penetrates right through the thickest
clothing, and this continues to blow for many days
at a time.

There can be no doubt that these hasty conclusions
and generalizations upon the subject of natural phenomena
about climate must often prove a subject of regret

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1 880, p. 12.

400 SUDDEN CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE.

to the careful student, who not unfrequently finds
himself unwittingly led astray by them. The existence
of these cold winds in the Desert Zone, so far as
we are aware, has long" been a matter of well ascertained
fact, and the comparatively limited area of the desert
in northern Mexico and Texas, may be cited as an
example of a region peculiarly subject to the visitation of
these " cold snaps " as they are there termed. Similar
experiences are noted from the great Central Asian
deserts, as indeed from all other dry barren regions.

There is hardly much room for doubt that the cause
of the sudden transitions from heat to cold, in the
case of these cold winds, is the displacement of a warm
undercurrent by a cold layer of air descending from
the higher regions of the atmosphere, as we have had
occasion to point out elsewhere — while the rapid chilling
of the still air by night is due to radiation and
absence of aqueous vapour. Count D'Escayrac de
Lauture mentions the fact of his observing on one
occasion, during the month of January, under the 17 th
parallel of latitude, the thermometer which at sunrise
marked a temperature of only 5 ° Celsius (= 4 1 ° Fahr.)
rising to 35° Celsius (= 95° Fahr.) by i. p.m. the
following afternoon, thus showing the enormous varia-
tion of 30° Celsius (=54° F.) in only seven hours.
The human frame, he says,

" has not time to accustom itself to these sudden changes,
the cold of the night seems insupportable and the heat of
the day overpowering; these two temperatures are nothing
excessive in themselves, but the human body, able to bear
the winters of the Polar regions, and the summers of the
Soudan, does not bear equally well the sudden transition
from the temperature of a night in France to that of a day

BRILLIANT MOONLIGHT. 401

in India ; nevertheless it does not occasion serious illness, but
only a certain feeling of suffering in the early morning and
of fatigue by day, " and " the summer, which is less healthy,
and of which the heats are excessive, seems less invigorating
than the winter."*

The comparative coldness of the desert nights, of
which we have thus far only noticed the disadvantages
in order to point out the necessity for travellers to be
always provided with a sufficient stock of warm clothing,
has on the other hand advantages which must by no
means be forgotten.

When the cold is not extreme, and proper precautions
have been taken to guard against its effects, there can
be no doubt that it acts as an admirable tonic, and
generally secures refreshing sleep after the exhaustion
caused by the great heat of the day. The nights are
for the most part generally fine and unsurpassed for
the delicious purity and perfect transparency of the
atmosphere. There is no dew to dampen clothes: one
remains therefore perfectly dry, and owing to the total
absence of cloud the deep azure of the celestial vault
is to be seen spread forth in the serene altitudes,
radiant with countless myriads of stars, which here
shine with almost phenomenal lustre. Towards the
full of the moon also the moonlight is possessed of
an extraordinary brilliancy. There is, therefore, when
the nature of the ground is favourable, generally
but little difficulty in travelling by night, especially
when traversing the interminable plains which oc-
cupy so large an extent of country in the Desert
Zone — the Arab guides being adepts in the art

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
Paris, 1853, p. 20.

VOL. I. 26

402

CAMELS FEEDING.

of conducting the march by the aid of stars, which long
practice enables them to steer by as effectively as the
helmsman on board a ship at. sea can do by compass.
In the hot weather also, the camels travel better by
night, especially if the desert supplies them with occasional
tufts of scanty herbage which they can crop as they
pass them by; this their long necks enable them to do
without stop or difficulty: they also eat with better
appetite than during the day when halted. *

It is a well ascertained fact that these animals do not
like grazing during the great heat of the day, the morn-
ing at a very early hour is the time they prefer for
feeding, or else by night. It has been frequently
observed that when a halt is made for a short time
during the day, camels merely profit by it to rest
themselves, and not to feed unless their appetite is
excited by the sight of some fresh and succulent herbage,
or that they are refreshed by a little water, f

That being so, it is the practice of the Arab guides,
and one generally followed by experienced travellers
like Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, to time their departure
for a long march across a waterless desert, as far as
possible, for about the seventh or eighth day of the
lunar month, so as to take full advantage for at least
a part of the night, of the clear moonlight § which in
these regions bathes the surface of the waste with a
lustrous flood of silver light — so clear and beautiful
that the traveller as he goes along can easily note all

* See Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
Paris, 1853, p. 619.

•]• Dr. Gustav Nachtigal, Sahara et Soudan. Vol. i., p. 135? from
the French translation from the German by Jules Gourdault, Paris 1 88 1.
§ Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture
p. 617.

THE CONDUCT OF DESERT MARCHES. 403

the features of the country, at considerable distances,
almost as readily as by day. Even good-sized print is
sometimes quite legible. *

Count D'Escayrac de Lauture states that on these
occasions he used to set out upon his journey about
3 o'clock in the afternoon, that being the hour after
which the heat begins to decline, and he continued
his march until the setting of the moon, f He then
encamped for the remainder of the night, and the
camels were fed on grain, or if there was grass, could
graze during the early hours of the morning. Then,
an hour and a half before sunrise, or thereabouts, the
order was again given to load the camels and resume
the march until about midday. These questions as
to the conduct of marches, however, depend on a num-
ber of technical considerations; here therefore it will be
sufficient to note that the longer the moonlight lasted
by night, the less the count travelled by day. § In this
way he was able to make his passage with the
maximum of speed and the minimum of suffering both
to the men and animals. In crossing extensive tracts
of waterless desert where the grim spectre of thirst is
always hovering over the party, it must of course be
obvious that circumstances will not admit of delay.
The weight of water is very great, every gallon of it
weighing ten pounds, without allowing for the weight of
the water vessels; the amount that can be carried is,
therefore, but limited, and it is essential to reach water
before the stock of the precious fluid becomes exhausted.

The daily progress of a caravan is but slow, the

* Dr. Earth, Travels in Northern Africa, Vol. i, 1857, p. 310.
•j- Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture,
Paris, 1853, p. 617.
§ Ibid., p. 619.

404 CAMELS AND WATER.

pace of the baggage camel never exceeding 2 to 2|
miles per hour, which cannot be increased without risk
of serious injury to the animals; all the authorities
agree upon these points, and the animals also require to
be watered more frequently than is generally supposed
—that is, if they are to be kept in good condition.
British military experiences on this point are ample,
both in Asia and in Africa, with every sort of camel
— and Lord Wolseley's Soldier's Pocket Book tells us
that, when worked for three days without water, a
camel's condition runs down rapidly, and after long
journeys of five or six days without water, it requires
several days to regain its strength, while if it is allowed
to go down in strength below a certain point, it will
take weeks, perhaps months, to pick up again. *

Count D'Escayrac de Lauture appears to have come
to substantially the same conclusions, for he states—
"that according to the season, camels can go from three to
seven days without drinking, and two days without food " —
and also that after a trying journey of this kind — " the animal
is almost done up and could not start again immediately — it
requires some days, and often two or three months to re-
cover; if he is old he will probably never recover, and from
that moment has lost nearly the whole of his value." f

The Count then proceeds to cite instances which
prove the accuracy of these facts. Shall we therefore
conclude that stories of camels passing weeks without
drinking are mere fabrications of tricky natives to " take
a rise " out of the foreigner ? or inventions made for
the purpose of wilfully deceiving him?

* The Soldier's Pocket Book for Field Service^ by General Viscount
Wolseley, Adj. Gen. to the Forces, 5th Edit., 1886, p. 79.

f Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture>
Paris, 1853, p. 612.

ANIMALS AND SUCCULENT HERBAGE. 405

That by no means follows — as long as the camel
•can obtain succulent twigs of bushes or grasses, or
other nutritious food, water is no longer a necessity.

The examples of the sheep, the rabbit, and the stall-fed
ox, which we have already cited, are conclusive in this
respect ; the two former, as we know, do not as a rule
require to drink, when pasturing upon our English mea-
dows, where succulent herbage, dews, and copious showers
are plentiful. But in dry hot countries, like South
Africa or Australia, sheep require to be regularly
watered. So also with the stall-fed ox, if fed on turnips
and hay he does not require water, but if he gets hay
only he must have water morning and evening. Now
in almost all deserts there is a season of life and
verdure, however short, provided that there is rain;
and it is doubtless by camels when out at grass, at this
season, not requiring to be taken to water, that these
reports as to the extraordinary time camels can exist
without it have arisen.

The watering-places in the deserts of the old world
are some of them of very great antiquity. The
identical wells, and even the patterns of the water ves-
sels having been handed down unchanged from genera-
tion to generation, in the exact form in which they
were used, ages ago, by the predecessors of the pre-
sent race of Arabs. Customs in these regions are as
changeless as the aspect of the desert itself, and the
habits and mode of life of the nomadic tribes who
find a home in these desolate wastes, are probably pre-
cisely what they were thousands of years ago. *

Some of the finer and deeper wells of course contain

* See Sir Samuel Baker's Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, 1867, p. I2Q.

406 ANCIENT DESERT WELLS.

permanent supplies of water of good quality, and of
these, many are probably specimens of works descending
from the patriarchal times, and even from that of the
Egyptian Empire ; others are possibly the work of the
Carthaginians, or of the Romans — for the desert regions of
Northern Africa passed in succession beneath the
dominion of each of these powers.

Many notable examples of these ancient wells exist
throughout the deserts of Syria and Egypt, and it is
stated " that the greater number of the oases of the
Libyan chain owe their existence to similar works." *
The French engineer Degousee, a high authority in
matters of this kind, mentions in his " Guide du Sondeur, "
that towards the middle of the present century, the
Pasha of Egypt undertook a series of works with a
view of improving and re-opening some of these ancient
wells, "whose original construction probably dated
back some four hundred years " and " on the completion
of the works it was found that the wells were lined
with brick or wood. " f

A fine example of an ancient Roman work of this kind
is in existence at El Golea, an important city in an
oasis in the Algerian Sahara, where " a well of immense
size and depth, and well built from top to bottom,
furnishes an abundant water supply to the inhabitants.
The date of its construction is unknown, but there was
evidently a Roman station there. " § A splendid example
of a great Roman well 400 feet deep is to be seen in

* Treatise on Well-digging and Boring, by J. G. Swindell, Architect,
and Geo. R. Burnell, C.E., 1854, Ch. I.

j- See Guide du Sondeur ou Traite Theorique et Practique de$
Sondages, par Degousee.

§ See Le Sahara Algerien, Etudes Geographiques et Historiques,
par M. le Lt.-Col. Daumas, Directeur Central des Affaires Arabes a.
Alger, Paris, 1845, p. 318.

DESERT POOLS. 407

our own country at Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of
Wight, which shows how perfect such Roman works were.

Everyone will also doubtless be familiar with the
numerous references, which are made with regard to
wells in the Scriptures, which show the importance
which was evidently attached to them at this remote
period, in what are probably the earliest authentic
historical records of the human race.

In many of the pools and shallower wells throughout the
desert the quality and quantity of the water depend very
much upon the season — one year it will be sweet and
good, and the next perhaps it will be brackish, or
even of so noxious a quality as to cause disease and
death among the animals that have to drink of it;
then again some of them become entirely dry during
certain years, but the water perhaps reappears the
following year. * In the regions where occasional falls
of torrential rains occur at uncertain intervals, the
watering places often consist of pits, or shallow ex-
cavations scratched in the sandy plain, and here and
there of pools and other natural reservoirs, some of which
are of very considerable extent, but many of these
become exhausted during the dry season, while others
turn salt and become quite undrinkable, being salter
even than the sea.

The whole of the watering places of the desert are,
however, far from being known, and there are doubtless
many waters which are visited by and known only
to the wild animals; and not unfrequently these are
discovered by the Arab hunters following the trail of
some of these creatures ; the fountain will then probably

* See Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de
Lauture, Paris, 1853, p. 67.

408 ARAB NAMES OF POOLS.

be known by the name of the animals, and Count
D'Escayrac de Lauture informs us that the desert is
dotted over with fountains thus christened, "of the
gazelle," "the ostrich," etc.; or named perhaps after
some domestic animal as "the camel," "the sheep,"
" the bull, " etc. ; in these latter cases the name has very
likely been given through the animal wandering away,
and its owner after following the trail perhaps for days
has at length come up with it, upon the borders of
some desert pool, to which the marvellous instinct of
these animals had conducted it.*
According to the same authority,

" the water of these pits is in general brackish or putrid :
sometimes it proceeds from a soil impregnated by the salts
of soda, saltpetre, magnesia or lime, etc. : at other times it
has lain long upon the soil, exposed to the scorching sun,
and decomposed: the dung of the animals which come to
drink adds to the general infection, and the water is green or
black, sticky and viscid, its odour repulsive, and the taste
acrid or sickly. In the pits it is often bitter, and cruelly
purges the unfortunates who are forced to drink it: in the
lagoons, its evil smelling properties are still stronger, and act
upon the system in the same manner as putrescent sub-
stances: it is in one word a regular vegetable septic poison.
In general, however, the consequences of its use are not very
grave, and only a prolonged usage gives rise to serious
consequences." f

The borders of many of these desert pools upon the
great caravan routes resemble charnel houses, so thickly
surrounded are they with the bones and decaying
remains of camels and even of human beings, poor

* See Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de
Lauture, Paris, 1853, p. 600.
•j- Ibid., p. 600.

CELEBRATED DESERT WELLS. 409

slaves who have accompanied the caravans and who,
after dragging their wearied limbs to the borders of
these fetid waters, have there breathed their last. As
an example of the first of these cases we may mention
the pool of " El Moorahd, " or " the bitter well " in
the Nubian Desert, which we have already described,
on the route between Korosko and Abou Hammed,
another which we may also refer to is the " Fountain
of Meschrou," in Fezzan, on the Tibesti caravan route
described by the German traveller Dr. Gustav Nachtigal.
In the French translation of his work there is an
engraving of this desolate and repulsive spot, the
mouth of a small well appearing in the midst of the
barren sands; two Arabs are seen drawing up water
from it by a native water skin, attached to a rope;
the sands all round are thickly strewn with the relics
of mortality.

" The ground, " the Doctor says, " near it, was scattered
over with human bones, and the skeletons of camels. I
remarked also, not without a shudder, half covered by the
sand, the mummified bodies of several children, to which the
rags of some Indian blue remains of clothing still adhered.
Doubtless these were little negroes, forming part of a slave
caravan, who had succumbed to their sufferings during their
long desert journey, for it is the custom when they are unable
to continue their journey to abandon them, and leave them
to perish miserably under the torrid rays of a tropical sun.
No tomb shelters these victims of man's barbarity: it is the
desert air which is left to slowly mummify them and reduce
them to the condition of skeletons."*

The losses sustained by caravans during a long
march across wide areas of waterless territory (in South

* Sahara et Soudan, by Dr. Gustav Nachtigal, translated from the
German by Jules Gourdault, published, Paris, 1881, Vol i.. p. 128.

410 MARCHES THROUGH THE THIRST-LANDS.

Africa significantly known as " Thirsts ") are often
considerable; even under the ordinary risks of the
desert carrying trade. The march in such cases has to
be continued almost without intermission, night and day,
until water has been reached — the fatigues, therefore,
which are undergone by both men and animals, are
often extreme — animals falling sick or exhausted must,
of course, inevitably be abandoned ; and human beings
must, under similar circumstances, be carried or walk
as best they can, until they recover or die.

Fortunately throughout almost all extensive tracts of
desert the friendly oases form harbours of refuge,
which appear here and there, at certain well-known
points, like islands rising out of the ocean. Among
the ancients these spots were in fact known as " The
Islands of the Blessed." *

Occasionally they are found singly: at other places
there are perhaps several which adjoin each other:
and sometimes a regular chain of them may be ob-
served, extending at intervals, for considerable distances
across the Desert Zone; an examination of a good map
of the Sahara, drawn on a large scale, such as that
published [by the French War Office of the Algerian
Sahara and the neighbouring territories, will make this
apparent, and shows the immense number of " Wadis "
or water courses which extend during the winter
rains from the mountains of the " Chaine Saharienne "
which lies to the southward of the Algerian " Tell, "
far into the Desert, until finally they are lost in the
sands. A great part of the Sahara consists of a deep
depression, now known to be considerably lower than

* iiaxaQav vfjsol, see Murray's Handbook for Egyft, 8th Edit.,
p. 17. Also Herodotus, Book iii (Thalia), cap. 26.

WARGLA — THE DESERT CITY. 411

the level of the Mediterranean; and the waters de-
scending from the elevated table lands and mountains,
doubtless make their way, by subterranean courses
through sand and porous strata, overlaid by beds of
clay, and other impervious deposits, for great distances,
and bursting up at certain points in plenteous fountains
there form "Oases."

Of the oases of the Algerian border, that of " Wargla "
is unquestionably the most important, and deserves
a few words of description.

The ancient Arab fortified city of Wargla (or
" Ouargla " as the French write it) which claims to be
the most ancient city of the desert, f is a place of high
historical and strategical importance ; situated almost
exactly upon the 3ist parallel of North Latitude, 199
French leagues from Algiers (= about 482 miles
Eng.)

Like many of the important towns of Northern
Africa, it is surrounded by an enceinte of immense
perimeter ; consisting of a crenellated wall, surmounted
by no less than forty forts, of two stories each, in
terraces ; while the walls themselves are protected by
a ditch which can be filled with water when desired,
and six gates, each opening upon a bridge of mason-
work, thrown across the ditch, give access to the
surrounding country. § The traveller on approaching
the environs of the town, through the desert from the
northward, finds an imposing panorama suddenly spread
out before him, on attaining the crest of the sterile
mountain called Cha'bet-el-Meh'al, which hides Wargla
from that side.

f Le Sahara Algerien, par M. le Lieut.-Col. Daumas, 1845, p. 75.
§ Ibid., pp. 72, 73.

412 A FOREST OF DATE PALMS.

A forest of date trees extends from the slopes of
the hills for some two or three miles across a marshy
plain almost to the walls of the town, which is situated
nearly in the centre of a forest of these trees interspersed
Avith other fruit trees of almost every sort, while highly
cultivated gardens extend in every direction around
the walls; the landscape everywhere displaying a
scene of fertile beauty which is characteristic of many
of the oases. But in consequence of being built upon
a marshy subsoil, Wargla is seriously affected by fever
of malarial origin, especially during the months of
October and May, when the intermittent rains are said
to begin and end. *

The climate of the desert itself, as already stated,
is generally healthy, but the moment we leave the dry
soil and vapourless air of the plains, and enter the
fertile oases, malaria immediately manifests itself; thus
furnishing a further conclusive proof, were that needful,
to show how entirely these diseases are dependent upon
the presence of water in some form.

The plague of flies also, which constantly appears
concurrently with malaria, here again assails the
traveller. Apart, however, from their frequently un-
doubtedly malarious character, nothing, we are assured
by Count D'Escayrac de Lauture,

" can give an idea of the freshness and tranquil beauty of
these oases: it is supposed that all these charms are produced
by the contrast with the desert; it is, however, scarcely possible
that anything could add to them. Beneath the shade of rows
of closely planted date trees grow apricots, peaches, pome-
granates with beautiful red flowers, orange trees covered with
fruit, — henna with little reddish blossoms, and even the apple

* Le Sahara Algerien, par M. le Lieut. -Col. Daumas, 1845, p. 73.

GARDENS OF THE OASES. 413

tree of our dim climates. Vines also are entwined from one
date tree to another; while maize, bending under its heavy
cobs, wheat, barley, tobacco, etc., fill all gaps in these admir-
able gardens, of which the most graceful ornament is still
the plume of sombre green which crowns the date trees, and
matches itself so admirably to the azure of a sky without a
cloud."*

Not an inch of ground susceptible of cultivation is
thus wasted, and where the oasis is of small extent
the village is usually located upon sterile ground, ad-
joining its margin, and looking out upon the desert.

At some of the smaller oases the water supply is,
however, both scanty and indifferent — and at important
points on some of the Trans-Saharian caravan routes,
the French government of Algeria has endeavoured to
supplement the supply by artificial means; and in a
good many instances this has been effected with strik-
ing success by means of Artesian wells.

These wells, which are now common in many
parts of the world, took their name from the pro-
vince of Artois, in France, where the first well,
on the Artesian principle, was constructed; this prac-
tice of boring for water having been adopted there at
a very early period : the most ancient of these wells, whose
date can be authenticated, being at Lillers in Artois,
and supposed to have been executed in 11264

The introduction of the Artesian principle by the
French government for supplying the oases of the
Sahara with water, it is possible, may eventually lead
to results of the highest importance, both from a po-

* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de
Lauture, 1853, pp. 15, 16.

•j- See Treatise on Well-digging, Boring, etc., by J. G. Swindell and
G. R. Burnell, C.E., 1854, p. 3.

414 ARTESIAN WELLS.

litical and from a commercial point of view; for it
is obvious that if a chain of these wells proved suc-
cessful in tapping springs, yielding an abundant and
permanent supply of water, along one or more of the
caravan routes across the Sahara, until the region of
the tropical rains is reached ; the question of a Trans-
Saharian railway will be solved, and everyone not
blinded by international jealousies must wish the French
God Speed in their attempts to accomplish this great
work.

A paragraph in the Times headed — " A Natural
Reservoir in the Sahara" (dated Paris, April loth,
1891), records what is probably one of the latest and
most valuable instances of the success of French
enterprise in this way; and says,

"A large body of water has been discovered at El Golea,
in the Sahara Desert, about 120 feet below the surface. It
throws up nearly forty gallons a minute, at present, and it
is anticipated that the yield will increase. The discovery is
regarded as of high importance, as this is the first time
water has been found in the Sahara at such a slight depth
underground. " *

El Golea, which we have already mentioned as an
oasis where a good example of a desert well of old
Roman workmanship was to be seen, is the site of
an ancient Arab town of considerable importance, on
the direct caravan route between Algiers and Insalah.
It is situated on a rocky mountainous eminence and
is mostly constructed in dressed stonework of Roman
workmanship, and is better built than any of the other
towns of the Sahara.! As a fortress somewhat in

* Reuter's Telegram in London Times of April nth, 1891.
f Le Grand Desert, par Eugene Daumas, ex-director des Affaires
Arabes a Alger, Paris, 1848, p. 36.

EL GOLEA. 415

the style of Wargla, it has made its mark in history,
and was considered impregnable by the Arabs. El
Golea is 101 French leagues, or ten days' caravan
march from Insalah, * mostly passing through the
sands of the " Sahara-el-Falat " or Waterless desert.

But reverting to the important question of Artesian
wells, however, the geological features of the Sahara
region, and the low level at which the basin of that
great desert lies, render it by no means improbable
that the enterprise of a Trans-Saharian railway may
be successfully accomplished by their means either
wholly or in part; and where the Artesian principle
failed, there would still remain the time-honoured plan
of the ordinary shaft, from which the water can be
raised by pumps ; and though the question is somewhat
foreign to the general scope of these pages, it may
perhaps be well to mention that the principle of the
Artesian well consisted* of boring down through beds
of clay, chalk, or other strata, impervious to water,
until a porous bed of gravel, etc., is reached; and if
this water-bearing stratum dips, from the point where
the water enters until it reaches the place where the
spring is tapped, the water will naturally rise in the
well, and in some cases where the pressure is considerable,
as for instance where it proceeds from a greatly higher
level, the water may gush out at the top in a plentiful
stream. A good example of this latter result is furnished
by the well-known Artesian well at Grenelle, near
Paris, sunk by M. Mulct, to a depth of 1802 feet.
It was brought to a successful termination in Feb.
1841, after eight years' work, at a cost of about

* Le Sahara Algerien, par M. le Lieut.-Col. Daumas, Paris 1845,
p. 320.

416 A GREAT ARTESIAN WELL.

400,000 francs. The water supplied is about 800,000
gallons a day : it will rise to a height of 1 2 2 ft. above
the ground, and its temperature is 81° Fahr. * The
borings for this well passed through 1378 feet of
chalk, the water being found in the green sand
beneath. The stories which are so rife in Algeria, (so
as to be almost an article of belief with many persons)
that small living fish are sometimes thrown up by
the fountains issuing from the bore-holes of these wells,
are, however, we are assured (on the authority of a
French officer, who was engaged in the construction of
such wells in the French African possessions), incorrect.

This gentleman, who had ample experience of such
matters, informed us during our visit to the Sahara
Algerien, that he had never known an instance of
living organisms of any kind being thrown out by wells.

A brief notice of the principal Flora and Fauna,
and the human inhabitants of the Desert Zone, must
bring this section to a close.

First and greatest, among the vegetable productions
of this region, stands the Date Palm (Phoenix Dacty-
liferd) " The King of the Oasis ; " whose head (ac-
cording to the Arab proverb) is encircled by the
fire of heaven, while its feet are bathed in water.
According to the German botanist, Thome (a trans-
lation of whose text book is a standard work in our
schools), the date palm " is the only tree that has its
original, and uncontested home in the Sahara: the
rest, as well as a number of other plants, have migrated
from elsewhere, or been introduced by man. " f Though

* Treatise on Wells and Well-digging and Boring, by J. W. Swindell
and G. R. Burnell, C.E., 3rd Edit., 1854, p. 82.

-j- Text Book of Structural and Physiological Botany, by Otto W.
Thom6 and A. W. Bennett, 6th Edit, 1887, p. 443.

THE DATE PALM. 417

by no means disposed to accept the latter part of this
theory, we may add that while no sun can be too
hot for the date palm, it flourishes only when its roots
have access to water; but, as may be seen along the
banks of the Nile, these will descend to very great
depths until they reach the water-bearing strata, and
where the banks have fallen a mass of fibrous roots
like cordage are often exposed to view all along this
river. Its presence in the landscape, therefore, is a
sure sign of water in the subsoil — or else of adjacent
wells, from which it is regularly watered.

On the other hand, this wonderful tree is quickly
injured by rain. " Like the dromedary, the date palm
seems to be but a child of the desert: the desert is
its natural abode: and it is there only, when under
the influence of its native soil, that it puts forth all
its strength and fecundity. " *

In the land where rain seldom or never falls and
where an incandescent sun daily pours down its fiery
beams, out of a sky in which a cloud is rarely seen,
the date tree finds its most congenial home ; indeed, it
is in rainless countries only that the air is dry enough
to perfect the fruit in its finest quality. The best
dates, for instance, sold in the English market, are
known as " Tafilet Dates, " grown in an oasis in
Southern Morocco, where according to Gerrard Rohlfs,
rain seldom falls, f

Among the Arabs the " country of the date tree "
is known as the " Belad-el-Djerid," and throughout

* Exploration Scientifique de L'Algerie, publiee par ordre du gouverne-
ment par E. Carette, Capitaine de Genie, Paris, 1844, p. 222.

f See Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Africa,
edited by Keith Johnston, 2nd Edit., 1889, p. 26.

VOL. I. 27

41 8 THE COUNTRY OF THE DATE TREE.

the oases of that region its culture is the main industry,
indeed " this single tree may be said to have peopled
the desert, and without it the tribes of the Sahara
would cease to be. " *

There are said to be over seventy varieties of dates,
of which Count D'Escayrac de Lauture enumerates
the Arabic names of forty-eight kinds. The geograph-
ical limits of the date palm in the northern hemi-
sphere are fixed by the same authority as lying
between the i2th and 37th parallels of latitude, f
elsewhere it is an exotic. The crest of^the full-grown
tree attains a height of fifty or more feet; and it is
usually propagated by suckers which spring from the
roots of old trees and stumps in great numbers, but
the date will also grow freely from the stone — but the
wild date is the result, and few of the trees produced
from seed are worth cultivation — new varieties of value,
however, are sometimes thus obtained.

The young trees become fruitful at about eight years
of age. These palms flower in March and April, and
the date harvest is gathered in October and November;
it forms both the principal food and wealth of the
desert tribes. The gardens where the date trees grow
have, as we have stated, to be constantly watered, to
mature the fruit ; this is done by a system of small
trenches, and banks of earth, formed round each tree,
to retain the water and protect its roots. § The dates are
produced in bunches of forty or fifty or more like large
bunches of grapes. When soft and freshly gathered they

* Du Spitzberg au Sahara, par Charles Martins, p. 567.
•j* Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture
Paris, 1853, p. 5.
§ Ibid., p. 7.

GARDENS AMONG THE PALMS. 419

are a really delicious fruit and keep well when dried in the
sun : they have been put to a variety of uses, even the
stones when crushed serving as food for camels. The
stones have also been used as a substitute for coffee,
and large quantities have of late years been roasted,
and sold in England as "Date Coffee," * for the sale
of which a company has lately been started in London.

The beauty of the gardens of fruits and flowering
plants usually cultivated beneath these trees, has been
already alluded to ; the dense canopy of dark green plume-
like leaves with which the date tree is crowned, prevents
the scorching rays of the sun from penetrating in their
full intensity to the earth below, so that when rows of
these trees are closely planted, as they generally are,
the most delicious coolness (comparatively^ that is, of
course), may, in many of the oases where they form
a continuous forest, be enjoyed beneath their shade.
The gardens are merely separated by walls of earth,
which are pierced with apertures, to admit the transit
of water: — in these shady recesses many of our Euro-
pean fruits and vegetables grow and flourish ; of the
latter turnips, carrots, cabbages, beans, onions, capsi-
cums, tomatoes, pumpkins, gourds, and melons, may be
mentioned, f

A description full of dramatic power is given of one
of these desert gardens in the sixth sura of the Koran,
which undoubtedly forms one of its finest passages,
well worthy of insertion here. It runs as follows:

" Verily, it is God that causeth the seed corn, and the date

* Smith's Dictionary of Economic Plants, 1882, p. 151.

f Good examples of these Arab gardens are to be seen near Tripoli,
which lies on the very edge of the desert, and also near other towns
in the French Tunisian possessions along the "West coast of the Gulf
of Gabes.

420 THE KORAN ON THE SEQUENCE OF THE SEASONS.

stone to bud. He bringeth forth the living from the dead,
and He bringeth forth the dead from the living. He causeth
the morning to break, and He hath made the night for
rest, and the sun and moon for the reckoning of time. This
is the arranging of The Mighty and The Wise — and it is
He that hath made for you the stars, to direct you thereby,
in the darkness by land and sea. It is He who sendeth
down rain from Heaven, and we have produced thereby the
budding of all things : and from out thereof we have made
to spring the green herb, and from it we produce grain: one
grain set compact upon another ; and palm trees, with clusters
of dates hanging from their branches : and gardens of grapes,
and olives, and pomegranites, of kinds alike and unlike."*

Then the Scriptures, in one of those highly dramatic
word-pictures with which the Book of Job is literally
filled, alluding to the ephemeral nature of human exist-
ence, as contrasted with this luxuriant springing up
of vegetation under the influence of water — out of the
apparently dead, parched-up surface of these desert
lands, gives the following description of these pheno-
mena,

7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it
will sprout again,

And that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the
stock thereof die in the ground.

9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring
forth boughs like a plant.

10 But, man dieth, and wasteth away:

Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

11 As waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth, and
drieth up :

* El Koran Sura vi., p. 96. From "Extracts from the Koran," by
Sir Wm. Muir, K.C.S.i., Principal of Edinburgh University, 1888, 2nd
Edit., p. II.

THE SCRIPTURE ON THE BUDDING OF PLANTS. 421

12 So, man lieth down, and riseth not:

Till the heavens be no more they shall not awake,
Nor be raised out of their sleep.*

Among the treasures of the East, which might prove
a valuable adjunct to the productions of the Desert
Zone, under intelligent management, in some places is
the cinnamon tree (Cinnamonum Zeylanicum). This
tree is of the laurel family and was called the " Cinna-
mon laurel" by Linnaeus, and it is one of those plants
which seem to flourish best in pure sand: in the richer
soils, the aroma does not seem to develop itself in the
same concentrated form. The best cinnamon is ob-
tained from suckers, which spring up (just in the way
described in the scriptural narrative), like hazel rods
from the stools of old bushes which have been cut
down. Mr. P. L. Simmonds, on visiting the cinnamon
gardens in Ceylon, states that he was much struck
with the curious fact of these trees flourishing in such
situations, and says —

" the circumstance impressed me very strongly : it seems so
strange to see a plain of pure sand, whitened in the sun, yet
covered with a luxuriant growth of trees. These plantations
may well suggest a doubt as to the truth of the proposition,
that earth, destitute of organic matter, cannot sustain vege-
tation: certainly it is not organic matter which supports the
cinnamon trees of Colombo." f

We can fully confirm Mr. Simmonds' account as to
this, from our own personal observations. There are
large tracts of cinnamon bush close to the City. The

* Job xiv, verses 7 — 12 inclusive. [N.B. — Originally this "Book" (as
we call it) was written as a poem],

j- The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom, by P. L.
Simmonds, 1854, pp. 385 — 6.

422 CINNAMON TREES IN PURE SAND.

cinnamon tree, however, requires to be abundantly
watered, especially where the rainfall is scanty, and
probably at Colombo the roots reach water-bearing
soil into which organic matters have been washed
down by the rains.

Beyond the limits of the oases, the vegetation of the
desert itself is, of course, always scanty ; and over con-
siderable areas, already referred to, as the " Sahara-
El- Falat " for instance, it may even be said to become
almost extinct — but alternating among stretches of the
most sterile character, grassy and even bushy tracts
are here and there met with.

The dwarf trees and shrubs found in these bushy
portions, are almost always of the acacia and mimosa
family, and a good many varieties are covered during
the rains with beautiful and deliciously scented flowers,
as Pringle, the Poet of South Africa, reminds us, in
these charming lines —

" Bare are the sands, yet smiling there,
Th' Acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lovely and sweet, nor loved the less,
For flowering in the wilderness."*

These dwarf trees are to be seen along the dry beds
of torrents, or wherever there is any dampness in the
subsoil : they are also apt to collect in dense thorny
thickets on precipitous places among hills and other
broken ground, especially where the land is scored
by dry water courses, and though the presence of
water may not be apparent at these places, still it is
probable, and indeed practically certain, that these trees
are indicative of localities where it would be found,

* Poems by Thomas Pringle. Edited by Leitch Richie, and Publ.
London, 1839, I vol., 8vo., with a sketch of the Poet's life.

THE DESERT ACACIAS. 423

in greater or less quantity, by digging to a compara-
tively slight depth. The wood of these acacias makes
excellent fuel, and some varieties produce a sweet-
scented aromatic smoke. The form and appearance of
these trees is also always very characteristic, and
essentially peculiar to the vegetation of very dry
regions, — the shape bearing a close resemblance to that
of a mushroom. Solymos, a careful and competent
observer of these matters, states that "their tops are
as sharp cut as if moulded by gardeners into cir-
cular disks, flat and level, " and during the surveys for
the Soudan Railway he tells us they " rarely accomplish
a day's journey without seeing some of them ; and
that they are as essentially a characteristic and constant
trait in the features of even the most barren and rocky
parts of the desert, as the rocks, sands and grasses,
and appear beautifully suitable to the landscape, " * all
of them are, of course, exceedingly thorny; thorns, or
prickles of some kind, being a characteristic of almost
the whole of the vegetation of the Desert Zone, and all
dry regions even down to the grasses. Evidently as part
of a design of Nature for resisting the action of prolonged
droughts, the close bushy twigs and foliage of these trees
are therefore specially formed to catch and retain every
drop of water that may fall from the sky in the rare
event of a shower. The moment that the short rainy
reason begins therefore (when there is one), these
curious little trees at once burst into verdant leafage.
On the conclusion of the rains they revert again
almost as quickly to their bare, dry, and apparently
lifeless condition. The shoots made during a season's

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 64.

424 TRAVELLING BUSHES— BLOWN BY THE WIND.

growth are consequently very short, and this in a
measure doubtless accounts for their closely cropped
appearance ; the necessity for mutual protection against
the violence of the sudden storms to which the desert
is so liable will also account for their gregarious habit
of growth in clumps or thickets. When they grow
singly, or on the outskirts of copses and in positions
where they are apt to be blown down by storms,
another curious feature about these trees is that when
uprooted they travel about the desert in an extraordinary
manner ; being driven about by the force of the wind
from one place to another, much as an open umbrella
would be, and yet Solymos tells us that under these
circumstances they still continue to live on "appar-
ently for years, " * thus showing how little these curious
trees, when once fully developed, are dependent on the
soil for their vitality. When circumstances admit of
it, it is more than probable that many of them in the
end become embedded in the sands, and taking root
again form the nucleus of new plantations at other points.

The rest of the vegetation may be said to consist
mainly of herbs, bulbous plants, and grasses ; even in
the most barren situations, many bulbs full of sap will
be found by those who know how and where to seek for
them, and occasional tufts of some kind of herbage
are rarely entirely absent. Some of these grasses are
of an exceedingly valuable character.

The now well-known " Esparto grass " (Stipa Tena-
cissimd) of North Africa, known as " Haifa " by the
Arabs, which has lately been so largely exported

* Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 64.— (N.B.— The great
probabilities are that though these little trees are much dwarfed, still
their age, measured in years, is considerable.)

HALFA GRASS. 425

for paper making, is one of these. It grows in tufts or
clumps, in arid and rocky places, and mostly in moun-
tainous localities where little else in the way of
vegetation will grow. Its value in the raw state is
considerable, and is stated to be from £4 to £6 a
ton.

Immediately on the occurrence of rain, most of the
desert grasses spring up with wonderful rapidity;
quickly producing luxuriant growths of herbage, in all
favourable situations, which are much liked by camels
and other animals. But as they become desiccated by
the severity of the prolonged drought, many of them
are apt to become hard and wiry, and the ends of the
dried stalks then become converted into an armoury of
sharp spikes and barbs; the seeds of a good many
varieties are also prickly, and stick to clothes, etc., like
burrs; so that travelling at times becomes exceedingly
disagreeable. The well-known " Spinifex " or " Por-
cupine " grass of Australia * may be cited as a good,
though possibly extreme instance, of this kind of grasses ;
it is found growing in large clumps or tussocks,
sometimes three or four feet high, which often cover
the arid plains for hundreds of miles together. " f The
wounds inflicted by the spikes of this grass are so
serious, that horses " are often lamed, and even killed
by it," it is said to be utterly useless as forage, and
where these tussocks appear "water is hardly ever to
be found. " § Another grass of a somewhat similar
nature grows extensively in some of the dry karroos

* Triodia Irritans.

•j- Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia,
Edited by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 21.

§ Ibid., p. 21, see also Journal of Colonel Warburton, the Australian
Explorer, pp. 186 — 7.

426 PRICKLY DESERT GRASSES.

of South Africa, the " Poa Spinosa, " a desert grass
with sharp thorns, and about i£ feet high — so sharp,
that no animal will graze near it, and no barelegged
native will venture in among it. " * Then of the grasses
whose seeds are peculiarly troublesome " Pennisetum
Distichum " may be cited as a prominent example, its
little burr-like seeds are blown about by the wind,
and attach themselves to every article of dress so
closely " that small tweezers must be carried to pull
them off, " f and though it is a valuable forage plant,
and the pounded seeds produce a sort of flour much
used by the natives, " it is to the traveller his most
constant inconvenience. " §

Dr. Barth mentions a tall oat-like grass of luxurious
growth " AvenaForskallii," and also " Pannicum Grossu-
larium," as among the most valuable of the desert forage
grasses,** the seeds of the latter are, however, also
a source of annoyance. Then there is the " Pennisetum
Typhoidum" which produces millet, a most valuable
grain, much used by all natives in the interior of
Africa, ff and during the march of the British expedition-
ary force across the Bay uda Desert, in January 1885, for
the relief of General Gordon at Khartoum, an " almost
limitless supply of ' savas"1 grass, "the best feeding for
camels," was at that time obtainable. §§ In fact, so im-

* Travels in South Africa, by William I. Burchell (Botanist and
Naturalist) from 1810 to 1812, published 1822, Vol. i.

j- Dr. Earth's Travels in Northern Africa, published 1857 — 8, Vol.
i., p. 391.

§ Ibid., Vol. i., p. 391.

** Ibid., Vol. i., pp. 254 — 284, etc.

-j"j- Ibid., Vol. i., p. 391, etc.

§§ From Korti to Khartoum, by Col. Sir Charles Wilson, D.A.G.
Nile Expedition, 3rd Edition, pp. 9 — II. [The botanical name of this
grass does not seem to have been noted].

GRASS IN THE BAYUDA DESERT. 427

pressed was Sir Charles Wilson, the D.A.G. to the Nile
Expedition, with this circumstance, and with the abun-
dance of the water supply at certain points, that he
states — "the country between Korti and Matammeh is

NOT A DESERT, IN THE TRUE SENSE OF THE TERM,"* yet

it is marked as such on all the maps, and numerous
travellers report the existence of exceedingly barren
deserts considerably to the southward of this point.

This, therefore, may be cited as a good example of
the difficulty met with in fixing the southern limits
of the Desert Zone in Northern Africa: it is
probable, however, that in January 1885 the Bayuda
desert was then in a fairly favourable condition as
regards vegetation — occasional transitions, according to
the seasons, having already been noticed as being
common to nearly all deserts.

After a long continued drought, however, all the
dwarfer herbage, and less woody fibred grasses, become
so dry and brittle, that the sudden storms peculiar to
these regions cause them to break off like bits of
stick, or tinder; and the debris are then blown away
by the wind and finally reduced to powder. Among
others, Sir Samuel Baker calls attention to this fact,
which came under his notice while travelling in the
Nubian Desert, at a point considerably to the south-
ward of the Bayuda region, spoken of by Sir Charles
Wilson, f This phenomenon is of so striking a character
in dry regions that it has been selected as the Scriptural
emblem of mortality.

* See pp. xxvi and xxvii of the Introduction to Sir Charles Wilson's
book From Korti to Khartoum, A Journal of the Desert March from
Korti to Gubat, 3rd Edit, 1886.

f See The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker,
1867, p. 61.

428 SCRIPTURAL ALLEGORY OF THE DESERT GRASS.

Thus, in the numerous allusions to the frailty of human
existence which we meet with in the Sacred Writings,
we often find the state of man likened to that of the
grass of the field; and there can be little doubt that
the Psalmist makes direct allusion to this well-known
phenomenon of the disappearance of the desert grass,
when he says,

"As for man, his days are as grass:

As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;

And the place thereof shall know it no more." *

Most of the scenes of Biblical History are, as we
know, laid in lands either within, or else bordering
upon, the Desert Zone: and thus we find nearly all
the leading natural phenomena treated of in this
section, more or less frequently alluded to throughout
the Scriptures, in word pictures of exceeding beauty.

Thus the effects of prolonged drought are exactly
described by the Psalmist when he says

" He turneth the rivers into a wilderness, and the
water springs into dry ground." f

In every part of the Desert Zone this phenomenon
may be observed. Rivers of considerable volume flow
into it, but gradually their streams become less and
less, until at last they become altogether lost in the sands :
and instances are not uncommon where travellers have
lost all their cattle, and sometimes their lives, in South
Africa, and elsewhere, when attempting to return across
dry districts, or "THIRSTS," as they are there called,
after the springs have become dry. Then there is a
beautiful description given in the Psalms of the awakening

* Psalm ciii., verses 15 and 16.
t Psalm cvii., verse 33.

THE PSALMS ON THE SPRINGING UP OF VERDURE. 429

of Nature out of her long" sleep, it may be of many
months duration, upon the coming of the rains. It
opens with a description of the Greatness of the Creator,

of whom it is said

"Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment:
Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters:
Who maketh the clouds his chariot:
Who walketh upon the wings of the wind,"*

and then, passing on to the place where the spring-
ing up of the vegetation is described, it proceeds

" He sendeth the springs into the valleys,

Which run among the hills.
They give drink to every beast of the field :

The wild asses quench their thirst.
By them shall the fowls of the heavens have their habitation,

Which sing among the branches.
He watereth the hills from his chambers:

The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.
He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle,

And herb for the service of man :
That he may bring forth food out of the earth.
And wine that maketh glad the heart of man,

And oil to make his face to shine.
And bread which strengthened man's heart.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap;

The cedars of Lebanon which he hath planted;
Where the birds make their nests:

As for the stork the fir trees are her house.
The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats ;

And the rocks for the conies, "f

* Psalm civ., verses I (part of), and verses 2 and 3.
•- Psalm civ., verses 10 to 18 inclusive.

430 DESERT BEASTS OF BURDEN.

We shall perhaps be pardoned if we offer a few
words of explanation, as to what we conceive to be
the precise effect of some of the allusions made use
of in this passage.

Next to the camel, there can be no doubt that the
ass is the chief representative of the desert beasts of
burden, " and is hardly less than the camel a beast of
the desert. " * The Arab donkeys can go about two
days without water and many of the wealthy Arabs are
in the habit of riding donkeys, some of them being large
and beautiful animals of a pure white colour, with very
good action and easy motion: a great improvement on the
camel where very long marches are not required. The
wild ass is also specially a denizen, with certain species
of gazelles, of some of the most barren deserts in the
world, both in Asia and in Africa, and we believe we
are justified in saying that it is found, in its wild state,
only in such situations.

In the Book of Job, for instance, the wild ass is
referred to in the following terms —

"Who hath sent out the wild ass free?

Or who hath loosed the bounds of the wild ass?
Whose home I have made the wilderness,

And the barren land his dwellings.
He scorneth the multitude of the city,

Neither regardeth he the crying of the driver.
The range of the mountains is his pasture,

And he searcheth after every green thing. "§

As regards the passage " He watereth the hills from
his chambers " — it evidently refers to the ancient

* See Arabia Deserta, by Charles M. Doughty, 1882, Vol. i., pp. 281
and 428.

§ Job xxxix., verses 5 to 8 inclusive.

PALM WINE. 431

Hebrew belief as to the existence of great reservoirs
of water in the upper heavens, from whence the rains
were supposed to have their sources. This matter has
been gone into in some detail in connection with the
question of the Rains in the chapter on Climates
and Temperatures to which we beg to refer the
reader.

The Vine has been specially mentioned by the French
traveller Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, as one of the
plants cultivated in the oases beneath the shade of
the date tree, and though it may only be used there
as a fruit, the best wines, as we know, are all products
of dry, stony and barren districts ; nevertheless some
of the wines of Egypt were renowned for their ex-
cellence at a very early period. But though wine
from the juice of the grape is not now made in Egypt,
palm wine is very largely used in all regions where
the palm tree grows, where the freshly drawn sap
forms a refreshing beverage ; if, however, the liquor is
allowed to stand and ferment it becomes exceedingly
heady and intoxicating. It is consequently a disputed
point among Mohammedans as to whether palm wine is
forbidden by the Koran or not — some of the less strict
hold, that as it is a natural product, and not a
manufactured one, that it is not forbidden by the
Prophet. Thus they say of the Christian " they drink
' the fermented"1 which is forbidden to the Moslemm."*

As regards the reference to " oil to make his face
to shine" — oil, or fat of some kind, is still used by
nearly all the African tribes and oriental races as a
lubricant, partly because it improves their appearance,

* See a passage in Arabia Deserta, by Chas. M. Doughty, 1882 to
1888, Vol. ii., p. 8;.

432 WILD GOATS.

and partly as a protection against the scorching power
of the sun's rays.

" The trees of the Lord are full of sap " — we are inclined
to think that this has reference to the drawing off of sap
to which we have already referred, when mentioning the
matter of palm wine. Certain sorts of palm trees will
give off several quarts of sap daily, for some weeks
together — and the quantity of sap or fluid contained
in many of the desert plants is well known to be
altogether phenomenal.

"As for the stork, the fir trees are her house "-
though the fir tree is not a habitant of the Desert Zone,
certain sorts may perhaps be occasionally seen as
exotics — but there are other trees whose foliage are
exceedingly like that of the fir tree. We need go no
further to seek for an illustration than to mention the
tamarisk (Tamarix Gallica[LinnI\}. This tree is very
common in Egypt, and the new-comer might easily
suppose it to be a species of fir — in colour it resembles
the Weymouth Pine (Pinus Strobus}. It is to a tree
of this species to which we conceive reference may
here be made. The stork is seen everywhere in
these countries: and immense flights of them may
be seen at certain seasons both in Upper Egypt and
Nubia.

The wild goat which is still found in the mountains
between the Nile and the Red Sea * is well known to
be an inhabitant of the loftiest and most precipitous
mountains, and rarely or never descends to the plains.
The goat in its domestic state also everywhere accom-
panies the desert nomads in their journey ings; — by

* See Murray's Handbook for EgyJ>t, 8th Edit., 1891, p. 26.

THE DESERT HARE. 433

" conies " we conceive that the desert hare with sand
coloured fur is intended to be indicated — the rabbit in
its wild state is a denizen of the temperate lands, and
we can find no mention of it in the works of travellers
in connection with the Desert Zone — but the hare is
found in almost all deserts, and is often started from
her form by the feet of the passing caravan. *

It is not, however, to be supposed that this passage
from the i O4th Psalm refers to countries in the Desert
Zone only, as there is much fertile territory in Palestine,
the whole of which is subject to lon^-continued droughts
of exceeding severity ; the famines occasioned by them
are often referred to in Scripture ; and the country is on
these occasions more or less completely reduced to the
condition of a desert until the return of the rains.

The fauna of the Desert Zone is, of course, like the
vegetation, restricted to a comparatively small number
of species. During the short season of fertility, it is
probably visited by many descriptions of game, but it
would not be correct on that account to number them
among the regular habitants of the desert. The
number of species of birds and animals which have
been noticed as occasional visitors is, however, very
large — but as the waters dry up and the vegetation
begins to wither, these take their departure in com-
mon with the desert nomads and their flocks ; of whom
a regular exodus then begins, of which descriptions
have been given by Baker and other travellers.

In addition to the animals we have already men-
tioned, the gazelle (Arabice El Ghazal) is the only

* See Travels in Arabia Deserta, by Chas! M. Doughty, 1882 — 88,
Vol. i., pp. 305 and 326, etc.

VOL I. 28

434 GAZELLES.

regular habitant of the desert which we think ought
not to be passed over without a few words of special
notice.

The reports of travellers seem to show that there is
literally no desert too sterile for these beautiful and
delicately formed animals to find subsistence there. Like
almost all the denizens of the desert they have been
coloured by Nature so as to match more or less exactly
the colour of the sand — and of this protective colour-
ing the gazelle furnishes a conspicuous and very
beautiful example: so closely do their coats resemble
the general colouring of the landscape that in the
distance, and when at rest, it is scarcely possible to
distinguish them from the surrounding sand and stones.

In some of the more barren districts in which these
animals find a home, the only herbage that seems to
be produced is confined to occasional tufts of wiry
grass, and a few dwarf and strongly scented aromatic
herbs. Many of the desert herbs partake of this fra-
grant nature, and when crushed beneath the foot, or
in the fingers, emit a delicious and powerful fra-
grance.

Dr. Barth, the German traveller, mentions that in
some parts of Northern Africa, the dung of the gazelle
becomes so strongly impregnated by this aromatic
scent, that it is collected by the Arabs, and when per-
fectly dry it is reduced to powder, and used as a
species of pungent snuff. According to Mr. Doughty,
the number of these animals that frequent some parts
of the Arabian deserts is extraordinary and vast herds
of them have occasionally been met with by the great
Hadj Caravan ; * the gazelle, he also thinks, is identical

* Arabia Deserta, by Chas. M. Doughty, 1882 — 88, Vol. i., p. 50.

PROTECTIVE COLOURING OF ANIMALS. 435

with the roe deer of the Scriptures. Nature seems
also to have endowed these beautiful creatures (whose
only protection against their numerous enemies is their
fleetness and protective colouring) with the remarkable
faculty possessed by the hare and a few other animals,
of changing their colouring according to the prevailing
tints of the landscape.

These changes of colour, as in the case of the hare,
are of course the work of time ; but Mr. Doughty has
noticed that they are mainly white upon the great sand
plains, whereas their prevalent tint is a dark grey upon
the black " Harra " or lava fields of the volcanic dis-
tricts, * where the rock is of a still darker hue, they
continue to adapt themselves to its sombre colouring,
for he tells us " a startled troop of gazelles scudded
before us ; here they " are robust, and nearly of the
colour of basalt. " f The fawns are occasionally cap-
tured when very young and reared by the nomads —
but so hardy and fleet are these little creatures that
when but a few days old they will outrun the grey-
hounds or hunting dogs of the Arabs. These gazelles
make beautiful pets, but are very destructive in
European houses, tearing and eating hangings and furni-
ture of all sorts. Speaking of the beauty of these desert
loving animals, Sir Samuel Baker says,

"A buck gazelle weighs from 60 to 70 Ibs., and is the
perfection of muscular development. No person who has
seen gazelles in confinement, in a temperate climate, can
form an idea of the beauty of the animal in its native deserts.
Born in the scorching sun, nursed in the burning sand of the

* Arabia Deserta, by Chas. M. Doughty, 1882-88, Vol. i., p. 328.
t Ibid., Vol. i., p. 395.

43 6 GAZELLE EYES.

treeless and shadowless wilderness the gazelle is among the
antelope tribe, as the Arab horse is, the high bred and
superlative beauty of the race. The skin is sleek as satin, of
a colour difficult to describe, varying between the lightest
mauve and yellowish brown, the belly is snow white and the
eye is perfection, full, large, soft, and jet black."*

To have an eye like the gazelle (Arabice — Ain-
El-Ghazal) is an expression, as we know, constantly
made use of to denote the highest type of female
beauty; and this rather long, almond shaped, dark
eye, has been laid claim to as a speciality be-
longing to the beauties of the East. The splendour
of the dark eyes of one of these nymphs have been
thus dramatically described, in a legend, related by an
Arab story-teller, " She had eyes large and soft as
the gazelle. There were none that could compare
unto them ; and they were dark as the night that is
without moon and without stars. And though she
depart and is removed afar from me, still her abode
will be in my heart, and in the recesses of my bosom :
and as for her presence, it is as the sun shining high
in a cloudless sky." f

There can be little doubt that allusion is here
made to the lustrous beauty of the eye of the " Gazella
Dorcas, " a small antelope which is common throughout
the deserts of Arabia and Northern Africa ; where it is
sometimes seen in large herds. The word u Dorcas "
itself is identical with the Greek " Sopxas, " which we
are told on the authority of Calmet, a learned French

* The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, by Sir Samuel W. Baker,
1867, pp. 47 — 8.

•f- Part of an Arab tale.

EASTERN BEAUTIES. 437

theological writer, primarily signifies "Beauty," and
is so translated in several passages. But a reference
to the Lexicon shows that among the ancient Greeks
" dopxxG " was also the name of an antelope celebrated for
its beautiful eyes, and which has been described by
Aristotle as the smallest of the horned animals. *

In our own language, the word is still retained as
a female Christian name, and has also been adopted
as the title of charitable associations for the supply of
clothing to the poor. These societies, as is well known,
are so called after the Israelitish lady Tabitha, " which
is by interpretation Dorcas, " f mentioned in Scripture
as residing at Joppa, and making garments for the
poor — and Calmet in his History of the Bible, thinks
her name may have been derived from the fact of her
having fine eyes, of the gazelle type of which we have
spoken, the word Tabitha being the Syriac for
a gazelle. § This peculiar form of eye appears in
an exaggerated form in the Chinese and Mongolian
races; whereas among the Caucassian, or western
European nations, the rounder type prevails — such as
we are accustomed to at home; in China, however,
they are termed "Devil's Eyes," so great was the as-
tonishment which their unwonted appearance produced
among the lower orders of that most most ancient and
remarkable community.

Like the animals, the numbers of birds seen in the
desert are few, and the variety of species among its

ovdsv iG^is
ion r&v yvtoQigoiLSvow dogndg (Aristotle, — P.A. — Book iii — ii — 7).

t See Acts ix., 36.

§ See Webster's Dictionary, 1874. Appendix — "List of English
names of Women."

DESERT BIRDS.

regular habitants inconsiderable. In these dreary soli-
tudes the voice of the bird is but rarely to be heard
breaking in upon the deathlike silence which reigns
almost uninterruptedly; and in common with the rest
of the living creatures, the desert birds are almost
always coloured so as to match the sands in the midst
of which they live. A few sand-grouse, doves, and
small pigeons may be said to comprise the list of game
birds, and these are said to be tough, dry and inde-
gestible eating. It is in the great dry plains of the
Bush Region, on the equatorial margin of the Desert
Zone, rather than in the desert itself, that these birds
may occasionally be seen frequenting the water pools
in the dry season, in almost incredible numbers, in the
evenings and early mornings.

In popular opinion it is, however, always supposed
that the ostrich is at once the greatest and most pro-
minent representative of bird life in great deserts, and
in most parts of the Arabian and African deserts these
birds may be occasionally seen — rather, however, we
venture to think, as visitors than as regular inhabi-
tants. The ostrich, it is well known, is of a very migra-
tory nature, and wanders over an immense extent of
country — wherever, in fact, extensive dry plains are to
be found, but these curious birds are more generally
seen inhabiting the great game country rather than
the desert itself, and they seem to like the company
of other game animals, such as antelopes and zebras,
in preference to the absolute solitude of the perfectly
sterile waste.

Among the ancients the ostrich was looked upon
rather as a kind of animal than a bird, doubtless from
the circumstance that it never used its wings for flight,.

OSTRICHES. 439

but depended upon its swiftness in running1 to escape
from the attacks of enemies : and as its name " Stru-
thio Camelus " denotes, it was generally regarded as a
species of camel. Indeed, a camel standing among
bushes in the distance often looks exceedingly like a
gigantic ostrich. The peculiar habits, and apparent
neglect of its nest and young, together with the extra-
ordinary swiftness of foot displayed by the ostrich when
pursued by horsemen, are all found faithfully described
in the Bible in the following passage:—

" Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks, or the
wings and feathers unto the ostrich which leaveth her eggs
in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth
that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may
break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as
though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without
fear. Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither
hath He imparted to her understanding. What time she
lifteth herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his
rider."*

The rearing of these great birds, in a domestic state*
like cattle, for the production of ostrich plumes, has of
late become quite an extensive branch of industry, and
their nature and habits are fully described in books
on ostrich farming. The industry has, however, been
somewhat overdone recently, so that the profits of the
business have become rather precarious.

The ostrich, however, in its wild state still roams
over an immense extent of wild country; and though
like other kinds of great game they are gradually
being drawn further and further into the heart of the

* Job xxxix., verses 13 to 18 inclusive.

440 THE RED INDIAN AND THE BEDOUIN.

wilderness, many years will elapse ere this noble bird
will have to be struck off the game list of the Desert
Zone and the adjoining territories. The habits of the
ostrich and her mode of making her nest are beautifully
portrayed by Thomas Pringle, the Poet of South Africa,
in his poem "Afar in the Desert, " a copy of which is
annexed to Chapter xiv in this work.

We shall close this section with a brief notice of
the interesting race of nomads whose home is in the
great deserts. Without some such notice of man as
he exists amid some of the wildest and most desolate
regions of the Earth, we can hardly think that any
description of the Desert Zone could be deemed
complete.

It has often been remarked that the Bedouin Arabs
in the eastern, and the Red Indians of America in
the western hemisphere have many qualities in
common: both of them inheriting the same noble and
warlike characters, which make them the finest natural
soldiers in the world: — the same intense love of
freedom, the same unconquerable attachment to a
wild life, burn in the breasts of both. Born amidst
the wastes and solitudes of Nature, as the tenants of
the wilderness they live, and move, and have their
being; and as such they will live in story. The red
man, however, has always remained the crafty, ferocious,
untameable savage. But for ages the Arab has been
endowed with a certain rude polish, which has made
him, as it were, one of Nature's gentlemen — proud,
dignified, courteous, and self-possessed. Even the
poorest of the desert nomads receives a stranger with
an air of one accustomed to the society of the great;
whilst in face, form, and dress, their appearance is for

NATURE'S GENTLEMEN. 441

the most part always both picturesque and striking
to a high degree.

There can be no doubt that the gracefully flowing
robes of their Eastern costume contribute not a little
to heighten these impressions ; nevertheless it is by no
means uncommon to see faces with bronzed and
weather-beaten lineaments exhibiting some of the finest
examples of manly beauty which can be seen in any
part of the world: and so far as our experience goes,
these grand types of aristocratic countenances (presenting
the appearance of beautifully chiselled statues, cast in
bronze, from Nature's finest mould) are much more
often to be seen among the desert nomads than amongst
the inhabitants of the towns.

We have, in common with almost all travellers in
the East been frequently struck by the dignified and
patriarchal appearance of some of these men, whose
whole worldly possessions very likely consisted of the
tattered garments upon their backs, and perhaps the
horse, or camel they bestrode. Such examples must
be numerous in the recollections of all tourists who
now annually visit the Nile regions in such astonishing
numbers; and the European visiting Egypt, while
viewing the innumerable monuments of an immense
antiquity with which he is surrounded, will doubtless
call to mind many scenes which he has witnessed,
exactly similar to that so graphically described by
Byron in the following lines: —

"There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness
Crouch'd among fallen columns, in the shade

442 ARABS REPOSING AT A FOUNTAIN.

Of ruin'd walls, that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around,
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven."*

Such are the Arabs of to-day — and as such they are
known to have existed practically unchanged in habits,
customs, dress, or appearance since the time of Abra-
ham— and of most of them it may still be said, as it was
said of the patriarchs of 3000 years ago, that the stranger
was always certain of welcome at his tent, where he
is regarded as "the guest of Allah." Hospitality,
therefore, in its largest sense, has always been looked
upon as a species of religious duty among the Arabs,
who in morals, habits, and religion, may be considered
the Puritans of the desert. As among the Puritans,
the name of God is constantly on their lips, and
religion is mixed up with almost every act of their
daily life.

All of them, we need hardly say, are Mohammedans
of the strictest sort. It would, however, be foreign to
the purpose of this work to enter into a detailed
description of Arab life — we shall therefore confine
our observations to a few extracts from works of
authority on such subjects, with a view to illustrate
its most striking features as briefly as possible.

The following is a translation of some portions of
a set of verses made by a Marabout (a species of

* The Dream — Lord Byron, part iv., lines 8 to 21.

THE WANDERING ARAB. 443

" Saint " or travelling fanatic) — descriptive of Bedouin

life in the Sahara : —

"The wandering Arab is encamped in a vast plain,
Around him nothing breaks in upon the silence
By day, but the lowing (or moaning) of camels :
By night, but the cry of jackals, and of the Angel of death.

The sun is the hearth before which I warm myself

The clear light of the moon is my torch.

The herbs of the earth are my riches.

The milk of my camels is my sustenance.

The wool of my sheep is my vesture

I lie down where the night overtakes me

My house cannot fall to pieces.

I am the bird of migratory habits.

He carries with him no provision

He does not sow, He does not gather in (harvest)

God it is that provideth his sustenance. " *

It would be difficult to convey a better idea of Be-
douin life than is portrayed in these lines, recited by
one of themselves.

Their strict views respecting the duties of a host
towards his guest and the self-command which is part
of the Arab character are admirably illustrated in the
following anecdote. The incident occurred in the Sahara
Desert, during the stay of a caravan at an Arab town
in one of the oases

" Our host's son, a little boy of seven or eight years of
age, had delighted us with his grace and vivacity. His
father adored him. In the evening, however, he did not
come to supper, and we asked his father to send for him.

* Le Grand Desert, on Itine'raire cFune caravane de Sahara au pays
des Nigres, par Eugene Daumas (French general), Paris 1848, p. 373.

444 ARAB SELF-POSSESSION.

'He sleeps a profound sleep,' he replied; we did not
therefore insist further. The repast (which followed) was
abundant, and the conversation most animated, and the
Christians and the War were much discussed.

Next day the father said, 'When I told you yesterday
evening that my son slept profoundly, he had just been
killed by falling from the top of the wall, where he was
playing with his mother. It was the will of God, who has
given him rest. So as not to mar your feasting and your
joy, I concealed my grief. I made my afflicted wife keep
silence, and her cries did not reach you. But this morning
be good enough to attend my son's interment, and join your
prayers for him, to mine.' This news, and this strength of
character overcame us, and we went piously to bury the poor
child. Such is the law of hospitality! a host is bound to put
away from his house all griefs, all quarrels, — everything that
can trouble his friends' stay. For the Prophet has said, ' To
him who shall be generous, God shall give twenty graces.
Be generous, therefore, to your guest, for he brings to you
his benefits : — in entering he brings a benediction — in departing
he carries away your sins.' " *

" Speed the stranger on his way to his own peo-
ple " has thus always been a maxim among- the Bedou-
in tribes, and indeed among the whole of the Moham-
medan races, for— " Be we not all" (say the poor
nomads) "guests of Allah" — "Has God given unto
them: God's guest shall partake with them thereof:
if they will not render unto God His own, it should
not go well with them. " f

It is, perhaps, almost superfluous to add that the
teachings of the Holy Scriptures, are in no wise less

* Le Grand Desert, par Eugene Daumas (French general), 1848,
pp. 41 to 43.

f Arabia Descrta, by Chas. M. Doughty, 1882—88, Vol. i., p. 228.

THE STRANGER AS THE GUEST OF ALLAH. 445

emphatic than those of the Koran, in inculcating the
duties of charity and hospitality, and the remarkable
words of the great Apostle St. Paul will doubtless be
familiar to many, where he reminds the followers of
Christianity to " Let brotherly love continue. " " Be
not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some
have entertained angels unawares. " *

In the days of old, as history teaches us, the cus-
tom of entertaining the' passing traveller was almost
universal, and at sunset, the wayfarer could knock
without scruple at the nearest door, confident that a
night's food and lodging would not be denied him.

But this was before the days of hotels and poor
laws — and as we travel further back into the times of
antiquity, we shall not fail to discover that the well-
to-do, and wealthy householder of those days, not
unfrequently prided himself upon the largeness of his
hospitality, which was gratuitously extended alike both
to the rich and to the poor.

The advance of civilization, however, has changed
all this, and the traveller will occasionally experience
its advantages by observing the exorbitance of the
charges now sometimes exacted by those of " advanced "
opinions even among the Arabs for trifling services.
Among the desert nomads, however, a good deal of
the open-handed liberality descended from the patri-
archal times, nevertheless still survives these blessings ;
and, as a rule immediately upon the stranger's arrival,
even if only for a short halt, a cup of sweet coffee is
offered, if there is any; or otherwise a draught of
milk, generally in a curdled state. This to European
palates is often at first distasteful. Nevertheless after

* Hebrews xiii., verses I and 2.

446 THE TEMPTATION OF SIDI AOMAR.

a time, its somewhat acrid flavour becomes appreciated,
as exceedingly refreshing after a hot sun. But to
proceed. — The romantic aspects of Arab character and
its religious cast of thought are well illustrated inj;he
following legend, of which the translation has been
somewhat abbreviated for insertion here, but the leading
features of the story have all been carefully preserved.

THE TEMPTATION OF SIDI AOMAR.

" Sidi Aomar was a man who feared God — good,
hospitable, very humble, and holding in contempt the
good things of this world. The Divine blessing was
over him, and the demon could not prevail against
him.

(Here it is related how, for the purpose of trying
his faith, he was delivered to the temptation of Satan,
who asserted that he was only a hypocrite) — and —
"Sidi Aomar went as usual to the well to make his
ablutions, before prayers, and when he drew up the
water jar, it was filled to the brim with silver. 'It is
not silver that I ask for,' he cried, 'but only water for
ablution,' and after emptying the water vessel upon
the sand, he let it down again into the well. This
time he brought it up full of gold. He threw out the
gold upon the earth, upon the silver. The third time
it came up full of precious stones.

" 'Must I then,' cried the holy man, 'do my ablutions
with the sand of the desert, like the pilgrim on his
travels ? ' Having made this invocation with his face
turned towards heaven, when he cast his eyes down
again to the earth, he found the heap of silver, and
gold, and precious stones had melted into limpid water,
which ran down the slope, and it has never since

AIN-EL-FOUKARA. 447

ceased to flow : it is known as ' A in- El- Foukara ' or the
'Fountain of the Poor.' 'God is great,' cried Sidi
Aomar, as he threw himself upon the earth where the
miraculous spring issued, and thrust his hands into it,
and made his ablutions. As he regained his house
reciting his devotions, he saw afar off, two girls of
the Soudan, sitting before his doors, and an unknown
negro held a horse, magnificently caparisoned, by the
bridle, seeming to await his coming. ' What Sultan
has come to visit me, the poor hermit?' asked Sidi
Aomar of himself; and he hastened forward so as not
to keep his guests waiting.

" But the negro bowing down to the ground said,
'The Sultan of Fess hearing of thy virtues, and thy
poverty, hath sent thee great riches, and I myself am
thy slave.' 'I have no need of slaves,' replied the
marabout, ' return whence thou earnest. Take back to
the Sultan his present, and say, that by the Grace of
God, I have enough.' At this moment the sun arose :
there was a great cry ; the young girls, the negro, and
the horse all vanished ; leaving no trace behind them.

" Then Sidi Aomar knew that the hand of God was
upon him, and that he had been preserved from the
arts of the demon. " *

The character here assigned to Sidi Aomar is that
of a local saint, Fakir, or Marabout, such as is common
among the nations of the east, and the miraculous fountain
of " Ain Foukara " means in the Arabic " The Fountain
of the Fakirs. " " Foukara " or " Fokara " being the plural
of "Fakir" "poor" — that is, poor, or humble, in a
religious sense. A Fakir being supposed to be "one

* Le Grand Desert, par Eugene Daumas (French general), Paris,
1848, pp. 8t>— 92.

448 FAKIRS.

who has chosen poverty for himself to come closer to
God" — thus many pious Moslems end their letters,
the humble, or poor one, before God. *

The "Sheikh El Islam," for instance, in his official
proclamations, interpreting disputed points of Mahome-
dan theology, signs himself " The Humble — so and
so— Sheikh El Islam."

It would be foreign to the purpose of this work to
enter at any length into questions of Moslem Theology,
yet it may be well just to mention that the followers
of Islam are composed of an infinite number of religious
sects, or orders, and it is probable that Sidi Aomar,
judging from the title of " Sidi " or " Sir " prefixed to
his name, would represent the Sheikh f of one of these
fraternities, for it is stated in the narrative that people
flocked from great distances to make what is known
as a " Ziara " or " pious visit " to the place of his abode.
Of these pilgrimages that of the " Hadj" to the tomb
of The Prophet, at Mecca, is of course the first and
greatest — but other and minor pilgrimages, or Ziaras
to the tombs of saints, etc., are also esteemed highly
meritorious, in a religious sense: and those who have
travelled in Mohammedan countries, will doubtless have
noticed the numbers of these sort of tombs, erected
over the places of sepulture of Sheikhs of religious
orders. Many of these shrines are held in great venera-
tion, and the spiritual influence of their tenants is by
no means regarded as extinguished by death, but rather
the reverse; prayers offered up by the devout at such

* Marabouts et Chouans, etude sur L'Islam en Algerie, par Louis
Rinn, Chef du Service des affaires Indigenes au gouvernement,
p. 66.

f Sheikh, literally "an Elder," from the Arabic "Shakka" to be old —
in other words "a chief" or any man of eminence.

ZIARAS OR PIOUS VISITS. 449

spots being1 regarded as peculiarly efficacious: — Nor
are these shrines without their practical utility among
the wild tribes of the east — for instance, when an
Arab conceives himself to have been wronged by a
neighbour, instead of threatening "to put the matter
into the hands of his solicitor " as people do in Europe,
if his adversary persists in refusing justice, and he feels
that he is the weaker party and unable to enforce his
claim, he forthwith makes one of these Ziaras to the
grave of the local Sheikh: there he erects a small pile
of stones: he places these one upon another upon the
grave, as an offering or memorial, testifying to the
wrong that has been done to him. The injured man
then seeks another interview with his adversary, and
again urges him to grant redress, and tells him of his
visit to the tomb. But if justice is still denied, the
interview ends by his saying that " it is well, " " and
that he leaves his cause in the hands of Allah, " for
in the Koran " the perspicuous Book, " " the Book which
cannot be doubted, M it is written that the just alone
shall prosper.

We are not aware that this custom is universal, but
there can be no doubt that it is common among many
of the wilder tribes, and it is said to be rare to find
anyone who ventures to disregard such an appeal. If
the wrongdoer knows that the injured party has right
upon his side therefore, he generally ends by giving in
— " lest some evil should befall him " — and hands over the
money, or whatever it is, that was in dispute — and in this
way a rude but substantial justice is often obtained.

We cannot, of course, be blind to the many faults of the
Arab character, such as their oftentimes grasping and
VOL. I. 29

450 EXECUTION OF AN ARAB MURDERESS.

covetous natures — the grievous oppressions and misdeeds
of their native rulers: — the continual wars and inter-
tribal dissensions over their respective " dira " or bound-
aries of their desert territories, and consequent com-
motions and blood-feuds — yet though the Arab
disposition is generally regarded as revengeful and
merciless, the following anecdote shows that a certain
noble generosity and forgetfulness of injuries is by no
means unknown. Under the Mohammedan law of the
Arabs, it is usual when persons are convicted of
murder to deliver up the criminal to the vengeance
of the next of kin. Mr. Doughty relates an instance
at Anegza in Arabia, where a woman enticed a little
girl, the only daughter of a wealthy family, into her
yard, and there foully murdered her for the golden
ornaments which she wore, after which she buried
the body near her house. The remains were, however,
discovered, under circumstances which left no room for
doubt as to who had committed the crime, and the
criminal was brought forth to suffer death in the.
presence of the assembled people by order of the
executive Emir. For fifteen years we are told, there
had been but one previous capital punishment in this
town. The woman was now delivered bound to the
kindred of the slain, to be put to death — and Mr.
Doughty gives the following account of what followed.
The Emir " bade the father ' Rise up and slay that
wicked woman, the murderess of his child. ' But he,
who was a religious elder, and a mild and godly
person, responded — 'My little daughter is gone to the
mercy of Allah ; although I slay the woman, yet may
not this bring again the life of my child. Suffer, Sir,
that I spare her; she that is gone, is gone.' 'But/

ARAB HOSPITALITY AND HONESTY. 451

(replied the Emir) ' her crime cannot remain unpunished,
for that were of too perilous example in the town.
Strike thou, I say, and kill her.' Then the father
drew his sword, and slew her, according to the order
of the Emir."*

Mr. Doughty, who passed some years in travelling
through Arabia, among some of the wildest and most
fanatical tribes in existence, speaks in high terms of
their hospitality and honesty. His attempt to visit
them was generally accounted an act almost of suicide,
for it was considered certain that he would be robbed
and murdered by them; yet though his life was often
threatened on the grounds of his being a Christian,
he was very seldom seriously molested; for on these
occasions, there were always plenty of respectable
people ready to take his part, and afford him shelter
and protection as "the guest of Allah."

This chapter has been prolonged beyond its intended
limits, but special attention has been bestowed upon
the Desert Zone because the phenomena of the desert
have been but too often passed over in works of travel,
as if they were hardly of sufficient interest to deserve
attention — and yet the desert is everywhere replete
with both interest and instruction. Its scenery, for
instance, is often grand in the extreme : for the artist,
the matchless colouring of its landscapes can hardly
be surpassed: as we have endeavoured to point out,
it is a great mistake to suppose that it consists merely
of a flat and dreary waste of yellow sand ; nothing
could well be further from the truth; take, as an
instance in point, the section of sterile desert within
easy reach of every tourist, passed through by the Suez

* Arabia Deserta, by Chas. M. Doughty, 1882—88, Vol. iii., p. 368.

452 DESERT SCENERY.

Canal, and notably that portion traversed by the railway
from Ismailia to Suez: given a day when the sun is
shining brightly, the sands, gravels, and sterile cliffs
and mountains comprise almost every shade of colour-
ing, from white, to deep reds, and yellows, and even
chocolate, and purple hues: but the splendour which
the stern lineaments of the desert can assume are never
more striking than at sunset and sunrise : let any lover
of the beauties of Nature take the trouble to watch
the effects produced at these times, either at Suez, or
along the Nile, or from the plateau of the great
pyramids at Gizeh looking eastwards towards Cairo,
with its white houses, numerous minarets, and ancient
citadel seen across the valley of the great river clothed
during the tourist season in its matchless mantle of
emerald green. But it is not these things, beautiful
as they certainly are, which produce the marvellous
effects of colouring to which we desire to call attention
— these are merely adjuncts, such as the skilful artist
might desire to make use of, to set off the principal
feature of his picture.

It is the desert itself which occupies the leading
place in the picture. The distant hills, which almost
everywhere form the background in the great panorama,
generally appear perfectly divested of every particle
of vegetable covering; mere masses of sterile rock.
The country appears bereft of every trace of life, yet
on cloudless evenings, as the sun is setting, the land-
scape will be seen lit up with a glowing mantle of deep
rose pink which cannot fail to strike every beholder
with wonder and admiration.

The scenery of the desert is, in fact, on these
occasions, very often grand and impressive, beyond

A DESERT SUNSET. 453

description. Nor is the change less remarkable when
the sun has actually set. We shall never forget, for
instance, the effects produced by a sunset upon the
Nubian Desert. The sun was at the time just sinking
below the horizon : the whole landscape appeared a mass
of fiery red — but just then some incident occurred to call
away our attention for a few moments. We can
hardly think even five minutes had elapsed before we
again returned to admire its splendours. But it was
gone! During that brief interval the sun had set —
and a cold grey stony hue had replaced the deep
warm tints of rose — just as if the hand of death had
been suddenly stretched forth over the fairy scene.

But the majesty and beauty of the desert nights,
matchless in their untroubled serenity are, if possible,
most striking of all. The works of travellers in such
regions are filled with pictures descriptive of these de-
licious periods of beneficent rest and peace. Even
by day, as the late Dr. Junker has observed, when
speaking of the scenery of the Libyan Desert,

"At the solemn majesty of the wilderness every sound is
hushed — more vividly even than the sea the solitude produces
the impression of limitless space, its very grandeur stimulating
to reverie, and awakening feelings of awe and devotion.
But the predominant sentiment produced by a journey in
the desert is one of quiet serenity. The desert air, as re-
marked by Bayard Taylor, is an elixir of life, pure and
refreshing. The swarthy nomads love their desert home:
their dark eye sparkles as they sing its praises, and for hours
together their song is poured forth, animating the monotony
of the camels' step, as it rises and falls in uniform cadence.
The night song is specially impressive, when the wilderness
glitters in the white moonlight as if mantled in snow: when
distances seem vaster, the camel's shadow larger, and the

454 BEDOUIN LOVE OF THEIR DESERT HOMES.

stillness more intense, broken only by the crunching of the
sand beneath the animals' feet." *

Count D'Escayrac de Lauture speaks much to the
same effect, so does Dr. Hans Meyer — the desert accord-
ing to the latter in its deathlike stillness suggests the
idea of Infinity, and far more than the ocean, leads
the mind to the contemplation of things sublime. *

It is commonly supposed that a journey through a
desert is of necessity an affair involving tremendous
fatigues, and exposure to pitiless glare and heat, such
as to render all enjoyment impossible. That is as may
be. When a caravan is obliged to cross very exten-
sive waterless tracts, of course it must continue the
march almost night and day, whatever the condition
of the travellers, as the safety of all depends upon
reaching water within a given time, but at other places
springs exist all along the route at convenient dis-
tances: and experience shows that this class of travel-
ling is quite capable of being so managed as to be
very enjoyable, and often exercises what seems to be
an irresistible charm over many minds. As regards
its loneliness, Solymos affirms that — " not a tenth do
people in the desert feel the solitariness of an average
bachelor in town. " f We shall close our remarks on
this head by appending a translation of the last para-
graph of the work of Count D'Escayrac de Lauture, a
high authority in these matters, to which reference
has so often been made. He says —

"What renders travelling in the desert comfortable is the

* Travels in Africa, by Dr. Wilhelm Junker, translated from the
German, pp. 41 and 42.

\ See Dr. Hans Meyer's Across East African Glaciers, translated
from the German, p. 74.

§ Desert Life, by B. Solymos, 1880, p. 34.

DESERT TRAVELLING. 455

facility with which one can carry all that one wants, on
camels.* One travels, so to speak, with one's household —
one has large and good tents, bed, easy chairs, cushions,
carpets and mats; library and wine cellar; abundant provisions ;
large and solid utensils. There is nothing to prevent having
them: as in towns, there are 7 or 8 dishes at each meal.
Water is brackish, but it is easy to carry ale, or to take a
female camel which is watered often and which furnishes
daily more milk than can be consumed by myself and
servants. Thus it is that in spite of all dangers and fatigues,
I am not yet disgusted with the desert, and my only desire
is to traverse it anew. On the desert one is as if at sea.
Like the sailor, the persistence of bad weather or calms may
make him swear occasionally, but hardly has he touched
land than he wants to go to sea again. One quickly tires
of the monotony of a town, but one never tires of the
monotony of the ocean, nor of the solitude of the desert." f

Meanwhile as we take our leave of this great sub-
ject (as it appears to us) the scent of the aromatic
herbage seems to rise once more to the sense of smell
as if to remind us that we ought to pause one moment
to record the marvellous fragrance which pervades the
majority of these desert shrubs and plants.

It is a special peculiarity of the vegetation generally
throughout these almost rainless regions of maximum
solar temperatures, that almost the whole of it is more
or less powerfully scented. Some of these scents are
of so exceedingly penetrating a nature, that they
become at times actually oppressive: for instance, in
Northern Arabia, there is a species of desert grass, so

* The load of a good camel will be about 400 Ibs. of baggage, but
it is better if possible to confine it to 350 Ibs., if the journey is long
or the country broken. Arabs, however, often put loads of 500 to 600
Ibs. on powerful animals.

f Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac deLauture,
Paris, 1843. p. 625.

456 SCENTED DESERT HERBAGE.

powerfully scented with the odour of camomile, that
camels laden with it, which sometimes accompany the
Arab caravans, literally cause the atmosphere to become
impregnated with its aroma for immense distances to
leeward. Meeting with one of these caravans we once
sent home in a letter a little of the seed of this grass
to a lady in Europe, as a sample of these most power-
fully scented plants: it was, however, we were told,
too strong to be pleasant, and so could not be kept
in the house; and it had to be thrown out. But if
there are these tremendously odoriferous plants, whose
smell becomes obnoxious, because of its exceeding
strength — there are also many other species whose
delicious fragrance surpasses in delicacy and freshness
all the highest triumphs of the perfumer's art. The
scented acacia blooms we have already noticed: these,
of course, are only produced during the season of
growth; but among the herbage, the leaves of nearly
all the dwarf plants are at all times strongly aromatic,
but especially so at night, or after a rain storm.
Mr. Gordon Cumming, the African hunter, among
others, frequently speaks of this, and mentions that
" the air of the South African wilds was loaded with
balmy perfume emitted by the grateful herbs and plants."
Proceeding to the northward of the Orange river, he
notices that the small Karroo bushes were replaced by
others of a variety different to those seen towards the South.

" Most of these " (he says) " yielded a strong aromatic perfume,
more particularly when the ground was refreshed by rain;
on which occasions the African wilderness diffuses a perfume
so exquisite and balmy that no person who has not ex-
perienced its delights can form an idea of it." *

* Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of South Africa,
by R. Gordon Cumming, 1850, Vol. L, p. 135.

PERFUMED ATMOSPHERE. 457

Even the very skins of the animals he shot were
deliciously scented by contact with it. So again the
well-known German traveller and botanist, Dr. Schwein-
furth, in his passage through the sterile tract between
Suakim and Berber, in the Egyptian Soudan, mentions
the delicious aroma emitted by the herbage at night.
The air, he says, " was laden with scents which the
stores of the perfumer could not rival, and such as
no quarter of the world could surpass." * These
perfumes he goes on to explain, were principally due
to a little mountain weed (a " pulicaria ") whose
refreshing aromatic odour rendered the whole atmosphere
sweet scented. Dr. Schweinfurth was at this time
crossing the tract of desert between Suakim and Berber,
and was encamped among the barren hills only a march
or two from the coast, near a district which afterwards
became famous as the scene of some of the fiercest
battles fought between the British and the Arabs
during the Soudan War of 1884.

Then again in " Le Desert " by Pierre Loti of L'Aca-
demie Francaise, which has but lately been published,
the following description is given of the scented herbage
of the Sinai peninsula in which he was encamped.
There had been a night of severe storm and rain;
followed by one of those lovely mornings of serene
beauty which as frequently follow rain in these regions, —

"In the fresh tranquil morning" (says the French Acade-
mician) " at sunrise, when I open my tent, a puff of perfume
reaches me with the outside air: so powerful, that it seemed
as if someone had broken a pitcher full of aromatics before
my door. And the whole of this solitary valley of granite

* The Heart of Africa, by Dr. Georg Schweinfurth, 2nd Edit., 1874,
Vol. i., p. 20. Translated from the German by Ellen F. Frazer.

458 THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM.

is thus embalmed, like a Temple of the East. These little
scanty pale plants, which were perishing from drought, have
recovered life under the downpour of the night, and now
spread abroad their aromas like innumerable little bottles of
perfume : one imagines the air filled with benzoin, with
citronelle, with geranium, and myrrh. After a time I examine
the ground from which all these perfumes rise : it is covered
with white grains resembling hail stones after a storm. It
appears to be manna which the wind and the rains of the
night have brought with them. I collect these things; very
hard white grains, tasting like wheat, the dried fruit of this
dwarf prickly plant, which in certain places here have carpeted
the mountains. In gathering the manna I lightly rubbed
against these aromatics of the ground, and my hands for a
long while remained exquisitely scented." *

In this picturesque description, we see the great
wilderness of Sinai strewed with honey like drops of
manna, and its atmosphere perfumed with the aromatic
incense of desert herbage; and we are reminded of
the words which of old were inscribed among the
Mosaic records of the Scriptures, describing just such
another scene, not far from the same spot.

"And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold upon
the face of the Wilderness there lay a small round thing,
as small as the hoar frost, upon the ground."!

" And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour
thereof as the colour of bdellium." §

This species of manna exudes plentifully, during the
spring and summer months, from the branches of a
dwarf shrub, which is very plentiful in the deserts of
Sinai, known as the Manna Tamarisk (Tamarix Gallica

* Le Desert, par Pierre Loti, de 1'Academie Franchise, 2nd Edit.,
Paris, 1895, pp. 33—35-
f Exodus xvi., 14.
§ Numbers xi., 7.

THE MANNA OF THE DESERT. 459

var. Mannifera), upon whose twigs and bark it appears
in honey-like drops, which in the cool temperatures of
the early morning's are found as described above, in
a solid state: and in the valleys of these mountains it
is collected by the Arabs, sometimes in large quanti-
ties, according to the amount of the rainfall, which
promotes its secretion, though in common with many
other vegetable exudations it is caused by the punc-
tures made in the bark by an insect parasite — the Coccus
Manniparous. * This manna is, however, different from
the manna of commerce, obtained by making incisions
in the stems of cultivated trees of the flowering or
Manna ash (Fraxinus Ornus], f nevertheless it forms an
article of local trade among the Bedouin tribes.

The desert hills all through the peninsula of Sinai
are also covered with aromatic plants of which men-
tion has been made, many of which consist of varieties
of the Thymaceae, § distinguished for their powerfully
fragrant qualities which perfume the hands or garments
of all who handle or touch them. Thus in the patri-
archal times, in the historical narrative of the death of
Isaac who, in accordance with the ancient custom of
the period, called his successor to his bedside, to bless
him before he died, we find the Scripture describing
the raiment of Jacob as being thus scented with the
herbage of the fields. We can have no doubt that it
was through some recent contact with these aromatic
plants, that it became thus perfumed. The passage runs
as follows: —

" And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near now, and

* See the Encycl. Brit., 9th Edit., Vol. xv., p. 493. Article "Manna."

f See The British Pharmacopoeia of 1885, p. 265.

§ Encycl. Brit., 9th Edit., Vol. xxii., p. 89. Article " Sinai."

460 GARMENTS SCENTED BY SMELL OF THE FIELDS.

kiss me, my son. And he came near and kissed him: and
he smelled the smell of his raiment and blessed him and
said, — See the smell of my son is as the smell of a field,
which the Lord hath blessed ; therefore God give thee of the
dew of Heaven and the fatness of earth, and plenty of corn
and wine." *

Thus Isaac blessed Jacob, taking as his parable this
allusion to the sweet smelling incense of his fields.
Scented herbage, we may add, is common to most dry
regions, though in the colder countries, where it is found,
its aroma is perhaps less generally powerful than where
intense solar heat prevails. Nevertheless in exceed-
ingly cold and sterile regions of the North, we have
sometimes found the highly aromatic carraway (Carum
Carui) whose seeds are used by confectioners for cakes,
etc., growing in great abundance: — a good example
of a like kind in a plant inhabiting the Arctic Zone
may be cited in the delicately scented Angelica (Ar-
changelica Officinalis), which is much used at table in a
candied form for dessert purposes.

The subject of the desert flora is a large one, and
thus far but little is to be learned about it in books.
Contrary to the generally received opinion there are
a good many edible plants, mostly of a bulbous
character, and of so succulent a nature that not a
few of them furnish both meat and drink to the native
nomads. In the Kalahari Desert and the Great Namaqua
thirst lands of Southern Africa they seem to be specially
numerous. In South America, too, we have many
times seen deliciously cool and fragrant fruits of a
most refreshing character dug up out of the heated
sand of very sterile tracts. These bulbs, which were

* Genesis xxvii., 26 — 28.

EDIBLE DESERT FRUITS. 461

about the size of an orange, contained a soft pink
and well flavoured flesh, not unlike that of a melon.
We are careful to mention these facts, in order to show
that even in the sandy waste all is not complete
barrenness.

END OF VOLUME I.

FOURTEEN DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

is due on the last date stamped below, or
on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

^Ztf-

LD 21-100m-2,'55
(B139s22)476

General Library

University of California

Berkeley

Y0038688