ASPECTS OF NATURE IN THE SAHARA. 183 



growth, or even nearly approached it. It is true that the vegetation 

 consists of scattered clumps of bushes, lowly in height and not over- 

 luxuriant in foliage, but their presence is such as to relieve the land- 

 scape of the imputation of being a treeless waste. Along almost 

 the entire line of our journey a generous supply of terebinth bushes, 

 one, two, or three feet in height, covered the sand elevations, and 

 with them was a sickly green salsolaceous plant, the exact nature of 

 which I was unable to discover. And if we can fully receive war 

 illustrations recently gathered from the pencil of a staff correspond- 

 ent, the same feature must be a characteristic of the Sahara about 

 Timbuctoo as well. There are, indeed, a number of spots where the 

 vegetation is even more luxuriant — if a scattering of plants can in 

 any way be called luxuriant — comprising a number of dry herbs, 

 such as the rose of Jericho, which hardly rises a few inches above 

 the surface; on the other hand, there are areas where the vegetation 

 has been completely stamped out, or where it has been buried deep 

 beneath its canopy of sand. 



At about four o'clock we entered the depression that is occupied 

 by the great Chott Melghigh. When we first beheld this salt pan 

 from a distance of a few miles it broke upon the landscape with 

 dazzling whiteness. The salt was upon the surface, and the eye 

 failed to distinguish the presence of water. It was like a vast field 

 of immaculate ice thrown into the sands, over which hung the 

 images that were thrust into the sky by the rarely failing mirage. 

 We did not see overturned buildings and trees, or even sheets of 

 water, in these sky pictures; simple blocks of color, glowing in an 

 intense pink illumination, were the expression of the light aberra- 

 tion, and yet they might readily have been taken to represent sec- 

 tions of fortification walls. The reflected images were very much 

 like those which I had watched for hours among the ice of Melville 

 Bay, the same quadrangular blocks cast up to no very great height 

 above the horizon, and seemingly holding no definite relation to 

 any object which was within the field of vision. At one spot only, 

 and that, singularly enough, in the mountainous or broken part of 

 the Sahara, did we see a mirage reflection simulating a body of 

 water, and so true Avas the deception in this instance that nothing 

 beyond an appeal to the known geography of the region could rid 

 the mind of the false conception that was presented to it. The 

 Chott Melghigh is the largest salt pan of the Sahara, and it occupies 

 a position fifty feet or more below the sea level. It is here that the 

 gifted Koudaire had hoped to bring the waters of the Mediterranean, 

 and to give back to the sea that which once belonged to it. It was 

 while passing this chott that we first experienced the hardship of 

 pulling through the sands. The hollow had accumulated deeply of 



