VAST EXPANSE OF NORTH AFRICAN DESERTS, 349 



stretch of desert country, extending across northern 

 Africa from the Red Sea to the western ocean. Up 

 to the present, the southern limits of this great 

 region have been only very imperfectly ascertained ; 

 but still enough is known to show that the enormous 

 area of desert which occupies the north eastern corner 

 of Africa gradually becomes narrower as we proceed 

 towards the westward, the southern limits of the actual 

 desert trending more and more towards the northward, 

 until in North- West Africa, the limits which we have 

 ventured to assign as the normal extent of this 

 zone are not greatly if at all exceeded. 



Upon its northern boundary the Sahara merges into 

 a region visited by variable rains, which come down 

 from the Mediterranean during the winter season but 

 observations made by the French show that even in 

 Algeria these rains rarely extend further from the coast 

 than a distance of about 100 leagues, or say a little 

 more than 240 English miles, * as the greater part of 

 the rainfall is intercepted by the chain of the Atlas 

 Mountains which extends across Northern Africa as far 

 as the Gulf of Gabes. 



The region to the north of these mountains in Algeria 

 is known as the " Tell," from the Latin " Tellus," which 

 mostly consists of pasture and cultivated lands in 

 Morocco this territory is known as the "Riff," but as 

 can be seen from the signal station at Gibraltar, where 

 a magnificent panorama is visible, the mountains 

 extend much nearer to the coast than in Algeria, some 

 of the foot hills of the high ranges in fact coming down 

 to the coast line. 



* Le Desert et Le Soudan, Etudes sur L'Afrique au Nord de 

 L'Equateur, par M. Le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, Paris 1853, p. 2. 



