A PANTHER'S SKIN. 151 



(artemisia alba),* often cover extended areas; the jujube trees 

 clothe themselves in profuse foliage ; the coloquinta stretches over the 

 ground its branches loaded with spherical fruit ; and the tamarisk, 

 developed into a tree, waves in the wind its tufts of snowy and ros'e- 

 hued flowers. It is in these meadows that the Arab rears his tent 

 and pastures his flocks under a winter sky. The industrious and 

 sedentary tribes seek in the oases a more benignant nature, 



"The yellow down 



Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale 

 And meadow ;" 



and a soil which will repay their toil with liberal harvests. And it 

 is there only, in truth, that vegetation presents a development, a con- 

 tinuity, and sometimes even a variety, which recalls the fortunate 

 countries of the Mediterranean region. 



The old geographer, Ptolemseus, compared the Sahara to a pan- 

 ther's skin, sprinkled with black spots on a tawny ground. These 

 spots which, by an effect of contrast, are set off in black on the 

 yellowish tint of the desert, are the far-famed oases, which have 

 furnished our poets and romancists with so many an appropriate 

 image. Ptolemy's comparison is the more accurate because these 

 islands of verdure scattered over the sandy ocean, 



" Like precious stones set in a silver sea," 



have, in general, a circular form. We must except, however, the 

 grandest and most beautiful of all, Egypt. That immemorial land of 

 mystery and power is enchased in the Desert region like any other 

 oasis, and only differs in its greater extent and more elongated 

 figure. It stretches along the Nile like a ribbon 



" And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave." 



Its length, from Cairo to Assouan, is 450 miles. Its breadth 

 does not exceed nine to twelve miles, except at Cairo, where it 

 * Sub-order, Tubuliflorx. 



