|HE area of our present work would be very limited if we 

 understood the word Desert in its more rigorous significa- 

 tion ; for we should then have only to consider those 

 desolate wildernesses which an inclement sky and a sterile soil seem 

 to exclude for ever from man's dominion. 



But, by a license which usage authorizes, we are able to attribute 

 to this term a much more extended sense : and to call Deserts not 

 only the sandy seas of Africa and Asia, the icy wastes of the 

 Poles, and the inaccessible crests of the great mountain-chains ; 

 but all the regions where man has not planted his regular com- 

 munities or permanent abodes ; where earth has never been appro- 

 priated, tilled, and subjected to cultivation ; where Nature has 

 maintained her inviolability against the encroachments of human 

 industry. 



Thus understood, the picture we are about to trace assumes not 

 only vast proportions, but an infinite variety of aspects. 



Here and there, it is true, our eyes will rest on the gloomy 

 spectacle of rugged solitudes, where the soil churlishly refuses almost 

 every kind of product, where the boldest traveller cannot penetrate 

 without a shudder, and where the very beast of prey is rather a 



