STEPPE-LAND. 59 



undulating steppe land which, for want of a better 

 term, is usually designated desert. In point of fact, 

 the country through which the Euphrates rolls its broad 

 placid waters at this period of its journey to the sea 

 is a vast broken waste, showing here and there rocky 

 and stony excrescences, covered for the greater part 

 with short grass and aromatic scrub, capable of afford- 

 ing subsistence, during some part of the year at least, 

 for flocks of sheep and herds of goats, but too stony, 

 and possessed of too precarious a water-supply, to be 

 considered arable. Yet, — I am speaking of winter, 

 when I passed through, — despite the covering of 

 herbage which gives the ground immediately around 

 one a colouring of green, the general view presented 

 by the landscape is a dreary brown, such colouring as 

 I have described becoming merged at a short distance 

 in an all-pervading neutral tint, produced by a com- 

 bination of the earth itself and the faded grey of the 

 ubiquitous desert scrub, wan and sad looking in the 

 lifeless garb of winter. Along the river-banks them- 

 selves thick jungle of liquorice, Euphrates poplar, tall, 

 lank thorn-bush, and kindred growth is always to be 

 found, while some little colour is here and there infused 

 into the scene by pale-green patches of tamarisk, and 

 odd little pieces of riparian cultivation. Humanity is 

 represented by the squat black tents of the Anazeh 

 Arabs, with their flocks of sheep and herds of goats and 

 camels. Such existed in no great quantity at this 

 season, though I was informed that in the summer 

 months the whole river-plain between Meskineh and 

 Abu Hurareh, a ruined fort a day's journey farther 

 east, is alive with Arabs, who collect to pay their 

 annual dues to the Government. 



Between Meskineh and Deir, a six days' journey, 

 no places of importance are passed, small mud police- 



