PHYSICAL FEATURES, xxxv 
has been recently traversed by Mr. Jennings-Bramly 1 , who characterizes it as a "low- 
land " over 4 kilometres in breadth, covered with halfa-grass. Beyond this there is a 
great salt plain " broken up into small pools of clear water glistening on beds of 
crystallized salt as white as snow.'' 
The following Reptiles have been recorded from the oasis of Siwah, viz. : — Chalcldes 
ocellatus, Zamenis cliadema, Cerastes vipera, and Echis carinatus. Doubtless many 
more species occur, and it is probable that the majority of the more essentially 
desert forms having a wide range to westward over Northern Africa will be found 
in the different oases. 
Leaving the depression of Siwah, the route rises to the summit of the plateau, here 
only 25 metres above the sea. Cailliaud describes the desert beyond as very peculiar, 
consisting as it does of a multitude of small projecting rocks which hide everything 
from view. Further on small hillocks are passed, and then the oasis known as El 
Aradj is seen lying before the traveller, in a depression 70 metres below the level of 
the Mediterranean, enclosed almost continuously by the bold limestone escarpment of 
the plateau, excavated by tombs attesting the former presence of permanent inhabitants ; 
the cliffs surrounding this oasis are described by Rohlfs as perpendicular rocks 
91 metres high, of snow-white nummulitic limestone presenting fantastic forms. The 
floor of the oasis in Cailliaud's time was rich with the foliage of the date-palm, among 
which he observed some dhum-palms ; but in Rohlfs's day the latter had seemingly 
disappeared, and recent travellers have remarked that its palm-groves generally are 
being buried under the advancing sand-drifts. The brackish springs and the vegetation 
they nourish are the breeding-ground of such multitudes of mosquitoes, that the place 
is uninhabitable. It is, however, now and again visited by the Arabs because the dates 
that remain are excellent in quality. Gazelles (Gazella leptoceros) abound around 
this oasis, and associated with them is the large jackal (Cams anthns), the so-called 
wolf of Egypt. Cailliaud mentions another ruminant under the name of " baauar on 
bwuf sauvage." He describes it as being as large as a calf, and states that the sands 
were marked by its footprints. It may possibly have been Bulalis boselaphus. 
The desert immediately to the east of Aradj, at an elevation of about 3-5 metres 
above the sea, is strewn over with hillocks, and on its barren surface Cailliaud, on the 
26th December, experienced two degrees of frost at 7 a.m., while at midday the 
thermometer had risen only to 19° Cent. The route continues to traverse similar 
ground until it reaches the margin of the depression of Uttiah, 30 metres below the 
Mediterranean, with its date-palms, and in which Mr. Jennings-Bramly observed a few 
night-herons. Leaving this small oasis the route leads on over much the same kind 
of desert as that between Aradj and Uttiah to the edge of the hollow in which the salt 
lake of Sittrah lies, 25 metres below the Mediterranean, or even still lower ; it is 
1 Geogr. Journ., Dec. 1897, p. 6C6. 
