xxii INTHODTJCTION. 
the deepest black, their narrow beds overgrown with acacias, until, after a succession of 
such scenes, the route ends at Darawi. 
The whole of this region seemingly derives its water direct from the heavens; 
springs, if present, being excessively rare. As the Arabs almost never divulge the 
localities where mgheta occur, except under great pressure, the syenitic character of some 
of the mountain-ridges traversing this part of the desert leads to the supposition that 
these natural reservoirs of water are not so rare as the Arabs would lead the traveller to 
believe, and, consequently, that animal life in this area is not so hard pressed for water 
as has been generally supposed. The circumstance also that the wadis, in the central 
portion of the so-called desert, seem nearly in every instance to support a certain 
amount of vegetation is evidence that the great area throughout its lines of drainage 
is also characterized by the presence of a fair amount of animal life. The probability 
is that rodent life in these valleys is well represented, doubtless by no great diversity 
of species, but by many individuals. A gazelle is not uncommon, but the species has 
yet to be determined. The wild sheep, Ovis tragelaphus, is present in the district 
of Wadi Haifa, but it is evidently now being rapidly extirpated by the introduction 
among the Arabs of modern arms of precision. The ibex (Capra sinaitica) is also 
found in all localities suitable to its habits of life, and likewise a species of Hyrax. 
However, beyond the record of the occurrence of a few species of Reptiles and 
Batrachians in the neighbourhood of Wadi Haifa, we are absolutely ignorant of the 
character of the fauna of this portion of Nubia. 
The heat experienced over the foregoing tract of country is perhaps as great as in 
any other part of Africa, and the cold at night and in early morning proportionately 
so, the diurnal range of temperature being between 5° Cent, and 47° Cent., or 
even more. It is very rarely visited by storms of rain, but when they do occur they 
are generally in the form of hurricanes of great intensity, the denuding power they 
exercise on the desiccated desert being enormous, and the vivifying influence on 
vegetation magical. 
The tract of the Nubian desert lying between Abu Hamed 1 and Korosko is 
seemingly more sterile than the great region traversed by Burckhardt. Grant 2 , who 
had great experience of desert-travel, crossed it with Speke on their return, in 1863, 
from Central Africa, and described it as one of the most barren and hottest regions he 
had ever travelled over ; but his journey, it must be borne in mind, was made in the 
month of May. The sandy and in parts pebble-covered desert plain to the north of 
Abu Hamed, with its feebly-marked khors and scattered hills, is throughout the greater 
1 Linant de Bellefonds, writing about 182S, says of this place : — " Sa situation au sud des cataractes, et la 
presence des bois qui les avoisinent rendent cependant le pays relativement pittoresque. . . Les bois sont 
remplis de singes qui, ii l'approche des homines, s'enfuient dans les doums ou palmiers eventails.'* "When 
Sir S. EaUer was at Abu Hamed in 1861, he says the sterile desert extended to the margin of the Nile. 
- Proc. Boy. Geogr. Sue. 1884, p. 326. 
