Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/418

 888 NOKTH-EAST AFRICA. plants are mainly of African origin, those of the oases, whether cultivated or growing in the wild state, are mostly of European descent. Hence the inference that these depressions were in direct contact with the west Mediterranean lands at an epoch antecedent to their relations with Egypt properly so called. The greater the extent of the oases, the greater is naturally found to be the variety of their flora. In that of Farafreh Ascherson collected ninety-one species, more than double that number in Dakhcl, and as many as two hundred in Khargeh. But the widely diffused plantaga major, foimd both in Farafreh and Khargeh, is unaccountably absent from the intervening oasis of Dakhel. In the Arabian desert the characteristic plant on the slopes and uplands is the ratama, a species of broom resembling that of the Canary Islands. The mugwort flourishes in aU the depressions and along the banks of the wadies ; in other respects the flora of this steppe region is allied to that of Palestine. Fauna. Like its flora, the Egyptian fauna is more African than. European. If some domestic animals have been associated with the ass, which is seen figured on the ancient monuments of Egypt, the camel, the sheep and the horse, the latter a " Turanian " variety introduced by the Hyksos, have reached the Nile Valley from Asia. Most of the wild beasts have disappeared from the region of the Lower Nile, where they have retreated before the advance of human culture. The monkeys, which are represented on the old bas-reliefs as associating familiarly with man himself, are no longer found in Egypt. The lion and the leopard have also moved southwards, while the hippopotamus and even the crocodile have retired to the Nubian reaches of the Nile. None are now found farther north than Ombos. Hyaenas are still common on the skirts of the desert ; but of other wild animals scarcely any have survived except the smaller species, such as the caracal, the jackal, fox, "cat of the steppe," supposed to be the ancestor of our domestic cat, the ferret, and the ichneumon, or " Pharaoh's rat.'/ The fox-dog figured on the bas- reliefs of the temples, and on the paintings of the sepulchral chambers, lives freely in Egypt, venturing even as far as the skirts of the desert. The species of greyhounds sculptured on the old monuments have also survived to the present time. On the other hand the wild boar, although not represented on the ancient bas-reliefs, now infests the reed thickets in the Lower Nile region. In the solitudes bordering on the arable land, antelopes descended from varieties which the Egyptians had formerly tamed, are still numerous. They are here represented by several spGcies, nearly all of which have adapted themselves to their surroundings, assuming almost the identical colour of the ground now inhabited by them. The mice and all other rodents, as well as the reptiles and insects, have also a grey or yellowish tint, causing them to be easily confused with the sands and rocks of the wilderness. . The Egyptian avifauna is very interesting, owing to its European species, such es the stork and quail. These birds of passage cross the Mediterranean twice every