Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/716

704 plains of never-varying monotony; here the phenomenon of mirage is frequently witnessed. M. Duveyrier made many attempts to reproduce the aerial capes, isles, and mountains before him, but without success. In other places were found quagmires, known to the Arabs as borma, gulfs of liquid mud, in which an unwary horseman of the party was near being fatally engulfed. The Arab population of the Algerian Sahara have the tradition that one of these Chotts, Chott-es-Selam, was once covered with a sheet of water. They say that the Chott-es-Selam was a lake at the time of the conquest of their country by the Mahommedans, in the year 681 of our era. Since the year A.D. 1200, the Chott has gradually dried up, and during the last hundred years no recollection of water covering its bed has been handed down. M. Duveyrier says that, without any knowledge of ancient authors, or of this or any other tradition, a common sailor would affirm the same thing from the quantities of shells found, broken or entire, in some spots on the Chotts. The exploring party entered the Sahara from the north, and proceeded south as far as Chegga; there they found a variety of desert plants and shrubs. To the north of Chegga they found reeds of enormous length and a small species of bamboo, which makes hiding-places for wild boar and birds. Here exists an Arab tradition of an ancient settlement of twenty-five villages, all entirely destroyed by an inundation of the river Djedi. By the side of the river-beds many plants grow; but on the sandy plains of the desert proper the tamarisk often grows alone. M. Duveyrier describes how, on the 9th of January, a number of little plants sprang up in the district of El-Faïd, to the great joy of the shepherds, who could then reckon on herbage for their goats and sheep. The oases of Souf are portrayed in terms which seem to bring an earthly paradise before our eyes; here are villages surrounded by palm-groves, gardens teeming with flowers and fruit, fields of emerald breaking the monotony of the rolling sands. Later on, again, the travellers rested at a place described in such terms that many travellers will be tempted to follow them. It is called Negrin, a town built on a mountain-side, within reach of the grand Roman ruins of Besseriani, girt with orchards and olive-gardens, and with a river winding by. The observations resulted in fixing the latitude and longitude of many places, and a collection was made of geological and natural - history specimens, dried plants, seeds, etc. The region explored by M. Duveyrier is so little known that these details would be welcome generally, but they are all the more so when they are given in reference to an enterprise which (if carried out) will place the gold and ivory of Soudan within easy reach of London markets.

 

 , the Swedish antiquary, has just made a peculiarly interesting discovery in the neighbourhood of Christianstad. At Nymo, near that town, a tumulus from the bronze age was examined, in which, under a great heap of stones, were found two burnt corpses and a small bronze ring. In a stone chest close by were found the bones of about twenty persons, all buried in a sitting posture, together with two amber beads and a bone spearhead. But the most important discoveries were made in a wholly untouched "jettestue" at Fjelkinge. By the side of the entrance were several hundred fragments of richly ornamented clay pots, and two flint axes. Inside were found human skeletons, a quantity of amber, a perforated animal tooth, four bone vessels, flint knives, etc. In the southern portion of the chamber itself were the bones of four sitting figures, and a skull was picked up in perfect preservation. Unfortunately, the roof gave way, which made it impossible to investigate the northern part of the chamber. Bones of domestic animals were scattered everywhere. The great importance of this discovery consists in the strong additional evidence it gives of the existence of domestic animals in Sweden during the stone age.

is announced that the long-lost "Madonna with the Child," of Vandyck, of which countless copies exist in various parts of Europe, has at last been discovered in the original. The picture has formed the altar-piece to the chapel of an obscure German cloister, and was found there by the Flemish painter Georg van Haanen. After slight restoration it is now to be seen entirely uninjured and in its pristine condition. 