284 EUROPE 



clad summits and doing great harm to early vegetation ; 

 the latter, which blows from the south and west, pro- 

 ducing, from October to December, mighty downpours 

 which soon sink down through the honeycombed rock, 

 choke the narrow gorges, flood the holes and closed 

 plains, wash down the soil and humus, and work more 

 harm than good. This specific aspect of the limestone 

 country, with its fantastic rugged relief, fissured rock, 

 lack of water and soil, and the arid appearance of its 

 vegetation, is connoted by the local name of 'Karst', 

 which applies to the western and southern portion of 

 this region. 



The most typical part of the Karst is the lower or 

 Mediterranean belt, with its rainless scorching summer 

 and its moderately rainy winter. Rugged cliffs and 

 sheer slopes, with narrow ledges and terraces; stony 

 wastes with pits and larger holes called ' dolina ' ; the 

 whole seamed with precipitous gorges ; desolate high- 

 lands and isolated depressions turning into temporary 

 lakes, form its characteristic features. The woodlands, 

 which at one time undoubtedly covered a large portion 

 of it, having been recklessly destroyed, the slopes were 

 almost entirely denuded of their soil, and the maquis and 

 garigues have taken possession of the ground. They 

 sometimes form impenetrable thickets wherein dwarf 

 oaks, myrtle, laurel, strawberry-tree, tree- and other 

 heaths, lentiscs, sumacs, terebinth, Spanish broom, lau- 

 rustinus, oleander, paliurus, and numerous other hard- 

 leaf shrubs, undershrubs, and perennials abound. Often, 

 however, the plants can only form a scattered growth or 

 rock-heath, and large stony tracts are left almost bare. 



The coastal shelves, alluvia and isles have partly 

 retained forests of black and Aleppo pines with an 

 undergrowth of hard-leaf evergreens on the rocky ground. 



