AND LOWER EGYPT. 175 



tent of territory, or rather of sand, comprehended 

 lengthwise between the Red Sea and Libya, the 

 theatre of barrenness and desolation, and the for- 

 midable retreat of various savage animals, which 

 sometimes wander from their recesses to infest the 

 plains of which Egypt is in fact composed, be- 

 cause it is in them alone that man can settle. 



And if the domestic animals are in this country, 

 as in other adjacent places, the most gentle and 

 tractable in the world, the beasts of prey are also 

 the fiercest of all others. Their rage, like the 

 heat of the climate, is extreme ; so true it is, that 

 man alone has been able to change the disposition 

 of the former of these, which would naturally 

 have been as wild as the latter are ferocious ; 

 and that it is to long-established and very inti- 

 mate domestic habits that they owe the good qua- 

 lities which distinguish them. 



The caves of the lofty and rugged mountains 

 which border the Nile on the east and on the 

 west, afford haunts inaccessible, and fit only for 

 voracious animals; it is thither that the fierce 

 liyena drags the victims she has run down, and 

 where she heaps up their bones on an extensive 

 plain of carnage. She is almost the only qua- 

 druped of prey which inhabits these dismal soli- 

 tudes. Thc^e animals, which under a clothing 



elegantly 



