Deserts oy 



what is called the '*arid region" of the Western states. 

 Now, however, more than six million trees are said to be 

 growing on formerly barren lands, and Kansas alone has 

 two hundred and fifty thousand acres of artificial forest 

 growing up— a change which it is expected will so benefit 

 the whole region that it will cease to be arid. 



In this land we have little idea of the magic change 

 produced in the appearance of the landscape by rain falling 

 upon the hot, parched surface in southern latitudes. 

 There, growth is so rapid that, in Ceylon for instance, a 

 green hue begins to color the saturated ground after a 

 single day's rain, almost between dawn and sunset, where 

 all before was dreary brown. 



But the change which takes place in the desert of 

 Nubia is far more wonderful. During the dry season not 

 a blade of even withered grass is to be seen; trees and 

 bushes have shed their leaves — their very bark is cracked 

 by the fierce heat. The Atbara — that mighty tributary of 

 the Nile, to which its yearly inundations are due — has 

 altogether ceased to flow, and is converted into a barren 

 waste of glaring sand, four or five hundred yards wide, 

 interspersed with a few pools here and there. And yet 

 the tremendous torrents which pour down into it from the 

 Abyssinian highlands have never ceased to flow; but the 

 whole of their waters, to the last drop, have been evaporated 

 on the way by the intense heat, or have been absorbed by 

 the desert-sand which has accumulated in the bed of the 

 river. Everything is parched, scorched, gasping; not 

 only the sand, but the air is burning. 



Such is the state of things towards the end of June. 

 The Atbara is dead! 



Then one night, when everything is suffocating, there 



