POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



do no more, at the new kind of country in which we have 

 arrived. 



Large trees of any kind we see but rarely, for the country 

 is covered in many parts with nothing but shrubs ; different 

 kinds of Mimosas, seldom more than twenty feet high, being 

 the tallest trees to be seen. Our road leads us sometimes 

 through a thickly wooded valley, bordered by rocky hills, 

 or near jungles filled with singing-birds, and we wonder at 

 the bright rich green of the tropical vegetation, canopied by 

 a sky of the deepest blue ("no description can convey any 

 idea of the sensation which such sights create"), till our 

 eyes ache with the glare of the sun and the orange-coloured 

 sand, and we creep for shelter under a "natural bower, 

 formed by the overspreading boughs of a Mimosa, whose 

 yellow flowers emit a delicious fragrance." 



On arriving at Souakim, on the coast of the Eed Sea, 

 the appearance of vegetation wears a very wretched aspect ; 

 a few stunted bushes rising out of the sand are all there is 

 to be seen near the sea, and in the town itself stands one 

 solitary Date-palm. Crossing over to the Arabian side of 

 the Bed Sea, and landing at Jedda, we find " an open tract 

 of sand without a vestige of herbage," and a " scarcity of 

 water." Travellers nevertheless relate that "the market 



