TREES COLONIZING THE DESERT 



Still ftirther south, one finds the regular tropical forest 

 which is characteristic of the tropics everywhere. 



The most interesting part, which is also the richest in big 

 game, is the intermediate zone between the desert and the 

 acacia forest or scrub. 



All sorts of transitions are found. Sometimes there are 

 thickets of thorny bushes. Occasionally scattered clumps of 

 woodland alternate with stretches of grass or what looks like 

 grass. Near the desert one finds pioneer acacias dotted singly 

 here and there ; these are the scouts or skirmishers of the army 

 of trees which is trying to occupy and colonize the desert.] 



This explains why this sort of scrub occurs in so many 

 parts of the world. On the European side of the Mediter- 

 ranean, the dry climate of Spain, the Riviera, and Greece 

 must no doubt at one time have supported a scrub vegeta- 

 tion. At present it is difficult to tell what this was. There 

 is a sort of scrub called Maqui which covers parts especially 

 of Corsica and other Mediterranean countries. In Greece, 

 also, thorny, woody little bushes are very common. 



But these are just what the goats, who are fiends from a 

 vegetable point of view, have been unable to destroy. We 

 cannot tell what sort of country revealed itself to the first 

 Phoenicians when they landed in Southern Spain to traffic 

 with the savage inhabitants, or what met the eyes of 

 Ulysses when he made his great voyage to unknown lands. 



But there are places in the world where man has never 

 either kept domestic animals or cultivated the soil. Possibly 

 Spain and Sicily in those early days were not unlike parts of 

 British East Africa, such as the Taru Desert between Mom- 

 basa and Kibwezi. 



The following may give an idea of how this scrub or desert 

 appeared to me. 



109 



