Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/325

Rh even less. But in other localities, such as Wadi Farook, on the opposite side of the peninsula, wells have been sunk to 100 feet and more without thereby obtaining a single drop.

No one who has traversed these regions can have failed to remark throughout them the great frequency of abandoned and half-choked wells, or to notice that almost all the deeper wells, in the excavation of which much skill and persevering labour must have been exercised, are of comparatively ancient date. These facts throw light on the former populousness of the country, and confirm the persuasion that what is now desert was, at least very often, not invariably so, nor needs be now, at least as far as its physical qualities are concerned.

Besides this, even where no wells exist, the moisture of this subterraneous reservoir, except where very great depth or a rocky and entirely impervious stratum prevents, slowly oozes up through the soil, and gives rise to a tolerable growth of grass, herbs, and shrubs, nay, even trees. Of herbs, Wallin has already mentioned the “samh” in his description of the desert in the neighbourhood of the Djowf, and the full and accurate description supplied by him of that herb and its uses, may dispense me from repetition. Again, the mesaa’, a shrubby bush, bearing small ovoid leaves, and a semi-acid fruit, much resembling our own redcurrant in size, colour, and taste, abounds throughout the same region. These plants are peculiar to the north-western desert. Southward we find the khurta, whose leaves serve in tanning; the thorny katad; the sidr, with its small and dryish berries; the nabak, a low and tangled shrub, thickly laden in bearing-time with a fruit not unlike a diminutive apple, and which I have met with in Northern India also—it is more abundant towards the south-eastern desert; the graceful nabaa’, and many other shrubs and plants, some possessed of narcotic or of medicinal properties, and bearing ample witness to the productive powers of the soil. In spring-time grass sprouts up everywhere between the pebbles, and its dry and yellow stalks may yet be seen waving in the autumn.

Such tracts form the greater part of the desert-ring to the north and west, and are to be found, though at rarer intervals, in the eastern part of the same circle, seldom in the southern. They are the customary resort of Bedouin tribes, whose indolence prevents them from profiting by the hidden resources of the soil, while its surface, without labour of culture, supplies the pastors and their droves with sufficient, though meagre, means of existence. Hence these wandering and brigandish herdsmen (for such is the real definition of the Bedouin Arab) swarm on the outskirts of the peninsula, and more especially on its northern and western frontiers. From this circumstance travellers, very few of whom cross the desert-belt towards the interior of the country, readily conclude that