Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/22

 6 NORTH-WEST AFRICA. the south-east or west, they had still to traverse bare and waterless solitudes. Hence, the sudden contrast naturally caused them to regard as earthly Edens the green slopes and purling brooks of these pleasant uplands. The plateau of Cyrenaica is largely indebted for its inviting aspect to the graceful outlines of its hills, which develop their highest summits in the very neighbourhood of the seaboard. The coastlands, in some places presenting the pink tint of the corals which form about a third of the whole mass, are skirted by tracts sloping gently to the foot of the vertical cliffs, or abrupt rocky walls broken by narrow gorges, through which wind the paths obliquely scaling their steep sides. Above this limestone pedestal tower the crests of the Jebel Akhdar, beyond which the traveller finds himself already on the verge of the desert. Here the beds of dry wadies open southwards ; to the wooded hills succeed the serirs, vast stony wastes, or extensive plains clothed with a scant vegetation of alfa and other grasses. The colour of the soil changes with its relief. The Barka highlands are covered with a reddish humus, whence the designation of Barka-el-Hamra, or "Barka the red," applied by the Arabs to this region. But southwards the fertile red clays of upper Cyrenaica gradually merge in the grey and white tints of the sands and bare ro3ks characteristic of Barka-el-Beida, or " Barka the white." Still farther south, where the arid soil no longer supports the scantiest vegetation, the desert wastes bear no geographical name. Here nothing meets the eye except the shifting dune, rock, or hard clay wearily traversed by caravans, whose track is marked only by wells of brackish water, occurring at long intervals. ClJMATE OF BaHKA. The northern section of Barka, beyond the serirs and dunes of the " white " region, enjoys an Italian climate. At sea-level the normal annual temperature ranges from 70° to 73° F., according to the latitude — an isothermal mean several degrees above that of Southern Italy. But oit the uplands, exposed to cooler marine breezes, the temperature falls to the level of that of Sicily and Naples. On the plateaux of Cyrene, 1,600 feet high, the heat during the day varies from 54° F. in winter to 84° in summer.* At night the temperature, although considerably lowered by the effects of radiation in a cloudless sky, seldom falls to the freezing- point. Altogether, for its soft and equable climate, Cyrenaica stands almost unrivalled. Here the traveller rarely suffers from the extremes either of heat or cold. He may also easily change from one zone to another, for the plains, plateaux, and highlands are all alike clothed with that rich red humus on which flourish all the cultivated plants of temperate regions. As long ago pointed out by Herodotus, " the territory of CjTcne has three admirable seasons. The coastlands abound in fruits which first arrive at maturity. Then follow the harvest and the vintage, and the crops are scarcely garnered when the fruits on the hills are ripe enough to be gathered. • Hamilton, " Wanderings in North Africa'."