58 SCENTED DESERT HERBAGE. 



A secretion also issues between the clefts of their 

 hoofs, which likewise has a pleasing perfume, doubtless 

 caused by constantly crushing aromatic herbage with 

 their feet. * 



Thus when watered with the dew of the celestial 

 bounty, the wilderness is transformed into a species of 

 terrestrial paradise, brightened with exquisite flowers 

 of powerful and delicious fragrance. It may be 

 well also to mention that many of the desert Arabs 

 of Northern Africa use the dry powdered droppings of 

 the gazelle, which graze upon the Thymacece, as a 

 species of powerfully aromatic and pungent snuff. 

 This in some parts of the Sahara forms a regular 

 article of trade, for which a high price is given. 



Before closing this portion of our subject another 

 cause ought to be mentioned which sometimes produces 

 considerable assemblages of game animals. This is the 

 practice of natives in hot and arid climates of firing the 

 grass towards the end of the dry season, in order to ensure 

 the springing up of a luxuriant crop of herbage for 

 their domestic animals upon the appearance of the rains. 



These fires frequently devastate large areas of 

 country, both of forest and prairie, and leave nothing 

 behind them but a blackened, ash-strewn desert, and 

 this causes large numbers of animals to congregate 

 along the course of some of the rivers, where the 

 succulent nature of the herbage has prevented its de- 

 struction by fire. This, however, is clearly nothing 

 more than another form of want, artificially created by 

 these fires, which compels the temporary abandonment 



* Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of South 

 Africa (1843 to 1848), by Roualeyn Gordon Gumming, 1850, Vol. i., 

 pp. 183, 253 and 271. 



