THE DESERTS OF AFRICA AND ASIA. 363 



have undergone on that account during historic times, comes to the 

 conclusion that such changes have not been very conspicuous in the 

 regions of the northern shores of the basin, where the climatic modifi- 

 cations, which 1 had pointed out in Asia Minor, are considered by him as 

 only local and exceptional phenomena, but that it is quite different iti the 

 regions situated on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, to the 

 south of the 34th parallel, where rains, even in their normal state, are so 

 inconsiderable, that the smallest reduction of their amount is sufficient 

 to alter the climate. Among the countries liable to such reductions, 

 Fischer quotes Syria and Palestine, countries full of traces of ancient 

 rivers and artificial irrigation, indicating a region once thickly popu- 

 lated, but which now is transformed into a dry desert, not only by 

 the fault of men, but also in consequence of a complete change in the 

 atmospheric conditions. Fischer also points out the numerous deeply 

 excavated Wadi in the whole of Africa, which doubtless represent 

 so many beds of ancient rivers, in a time when rains were much more 

 frequent than now. This important fact had been (many years before 

 the publication of Fischer's work) elucidated and discussed, in a masterly 

 way, by Livingstone.' 



According to Fischer, the increase of the atmospheric dryness in 

 North Africa is equally proved by the disappearance of the large 

 mammals and the late introduction of the camel in those regions. This 

 animal, now quite indispensable for all travelling purposes, seems to have 

 been unknown in Africa almost until the Christian era, for no figure of 

 it has hitherto been discovered on the monuments of Egypt and Meroe, 

 and Polybius, speaking of the Carthaginian cavalry, mentions elephants 

 but never camels. I had previously the opportunity of pointing out this 

 interesting fact in Asia Minor,'^ quoting numerous classic authorities, 

 and among others Herodotus and Xenophon, who both attribute the 

 victory of Cyrus, in the battle of Sardes, over the Lydian king, to the 

 presence in the Persian army of camels, the sight of which struck the 

 Lydian cavalry with terror and made them fly. Even in the sixth cen- 

 tury of our era, the historian Procopius mentions a similar impression 

 produced on the Roman cavalry by the sight of the camels employed in 

 the Arabian army ; but what is still more remarkable is, that as late as in 

 the twelfth century, Glycas reporting in his ' Annals ' the battle of Sardes, 

 together with the statements of Herodotus and Xenophon, in refer- 

 ence to the impression produced by the Persian camels, does not add to 

 this quotation any remark upon the difference between the habits of the 

 camels of the ancient and those of his time, which seems to prove that he 

 did not find anything extraordinary in such statements, and that con- 

 sequently even in the twelfth century, the camel had not acquired in the 

 East the perfect indifference it now shows for horses, which I have often ex- 

 perienced, keeping camels and horses tied up together without causing 

 either the least annoyance. 



Theobald Fischer quotes the authority of Herodotus and Pliny, and 

 also many ancient monuments adorned with animal figures, in order to 

 prove that in historical times North Africa was inhabited by the elephant 

 and rhinoceros, and, what is still more significant, by crocodiles ; for 

 those amphibians suppose the existence of rivers not liable to be dried 



' The last Journals of David Livingittone in Africa, &:c., by H. Waller, London, 

 1874, vol. i. p. 215-220. 



- Tchihatchef, Ane Mimurc, Climatalogie et Zoologie, p. 757. 



