Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/368

 292 NOETH-EAST AFRICA. Egypt, but it scarcely ever exceeds the limit of the Suakin-Berber route ; north of this point it no longer grows spontaneously. Tne argun, groves of which are found in some hollows in the Korosko desert, and which the majority of travellers call ddm, is another kind of hyphacne resembling the ddra, however, by the characteristic bifurcation of its branches. The peculiar taste of its friiit might procure for it the name of the gingerbread-tree. Elsewhere the date, which is the characteristic plant of Northern Nubia, supplying the people with food, shelter, hurdles, baskets, seats, and coarse gar- ments, is becoming scarce in Southern Nubia, the last specimens being in the gardens of Khartum. Sycamores are still found in the streets of Dongola, their evergreen foliage contrasting with the grey walls, but they are gradually dis- appearing towards the south. Far from the river, the prevailing trees are acacias and mimosas of various species. A tree called oclias yields a quantity of fruit covered with silky down very brilliant and perfectly white ; according to Cluny fine fabrics are woven from its fibre mixed with wool. The fruit-trees of the Mediterranean zone, such as vines, oranges, and citrons, are cultivated only in the gardens, their fruit being sour and tasteless, and generally rotting before maturity. The cereals cultivated in Nubia, either on the banks of the Nile or else in the •' Valley of Inscriptions," and in the steppes of the interior, belong to the same species as those of Egypt. Fauna. The wild fauna of Southern Nubia does not differ from that of Kordofan and the slope of the Abyssinian mountains. Lions, leopards, hyaenas, antelopes, and gazelles, giraffes and ostriches, inhabit the mimosa forests on the banks of the White Nile and the Bayuda steppe ; monkeys descend the Nile as far as Berber, but neither the elephant nor the rhinoceros pass beyond the forest regions on the middle Atbara. The last hippopotamus that has been seen towards the north was killed in the Hannek cataracts about the middle of the century, although ancient pictures represent it as inhabiting the stream below Syene. Millions of aquatic birds swarm in the islets and on the banks of the Nile. E-ussegger has followed in the fresh mud deposited by the waters of the Nile the traces of an animal whose footsteps resemble those of the quadrumana, and which were directed from the water towards the shore ; but he did not see the animal itself, the amanit, about which the Nubians tell strange stories. The termites, still so much dreaded at Dongola, are not found farther north than the twentieth degree of north latitude. The Nubians possess only one kind of domestic animal, the horse, which is tall and endowed with special qualities. Evidently of Arab origin, like those of the Kababish race bred in the neighbouring oases, these coursers, with erect heads and thin legs white up to the knees, possess none of the beauty of their ancestors, but they are astonishingly nimble and fiery ; they are fed on milk and durrah, and occasionally on dates. The gallop is their usual gait ; they roam throughout the