90 VIEAVS OF NATURE. 



or between nine and ten times the extent of Germany, and 

 almost three times that of the Mediterranean, exclusive 

 of the Black Sea. The best and most recent intelligence, 

 for which we are indebted to the French observers, Colonel 

 Daumas, and MM. Fournel, Renou, and Carette, shows us 

 that the Desert of Sahara is composed of several detached 

 basins, and that the number and the population of the fertile 

 Oases is very much greater than had been imagined from the 

 awfully desert character of the country between Insalah and 

 Timbuctoo, and the road from Mourzouk, in Fezzan, to 

 Bilma, Tirtuma, and Lake Tschad. It is now generally 

 affirmed that the sand covers only the smaller portion of the 

 lowlands. A similar opinion had been previously advanced by 

 my Siberian travelling companion, the acute observer Ehren- 

 berg, from what he had himself seen*. Of larger wild animals, 

 only gazelles, wild asses, and ostriches are to be met with. 



" That lions exist in the desert," says M. Carette, " is a 

 myth popularised by the dreams of artists and poets, and has 

 no foundation but in their imagination. This animal does 

 not quit the mountains where it finds shelter, food, and 

 drink. When the traveller questions the natives concerning 

 these wild beasts, which Europeans suppose to be their com- 

 panions in the desert, they reply, with imperturbable sang 

 froid, ' Have you, then, lions in your country which can drink 

 air and eat leaves ? With us lions require running water and 

 living flesh ; and therefore they only appear where there are 

 wooded hills and water. We fear only the viper (lefa), and, 

 in humid spots, the innumerable swarms of mosquitoes which 

 abound theref/ " 



While Dr. Oudney, in his long journey from Tripoli to 

 Lake Tschad, estimated the elevation of the Southern Sahara 

 at 1637 feet, and German geographers even ventured to add 

 an additional thousand feet, Fournel, the engineer, has, by 

 careful barometric measurements, based on corresponding 

 observations, made it tolerably probable that a part of the 

 northern desert is below the sea's level. The portion of the 

 desert which is now called " Le Zahara d'Algerie," advances 

 to the chains of hills of Metlili and el-Gaous, where lies the 

 most northern of all the Oases, el-Kantara, fruitful in dates. 

 This low basin, which reaches the parallel of 34 lat., receives 



* Exploration scientif. de I' A Ig6rie, Hist, et rj&ogr., t. ii. p. 332. 

 f Ibid. t. ii. pp. 126129, and t. vii. pp. 94, 97 



