292 NORTH-EAST APEICA. 



Egypt, but it scarcely ever exceeds the limit of the Suakin-Berber route ; north 

 of this point it no longer grows spontaneously. The argun, groves of which are 

 found in some hollows in the Korosko desert, and which the majority of travellers 

 call dCim, is another kind of hyphsene resembling the dum, however, by the 

 characteristic bifurcation of its branches. The peculiar taste of its fruit might 

 procure for it the name of the gingerbread-tree. 



Elsewhere the date, which is the characteristic plant of Northern Nubia, 

 supplying the people with food, shelter, hurdles, baskets, seats, and coarse gar- 

 ments, is becoming scarce in Southern Nubia, the last specimens being in the 

 gardens of Khartum. Sycamores are still found in the streets of Dongola, their 

 evergreen foliage contrasting with the grey walls, but they are gradually dis- 

 appearing towards the south. Far from the river, the prevailing trees are acacias 

 and mimosas of various species. A tree called ochas yields a quantity of fruit 

 covered with silky down very brilliant and perfectly white ; according to Cluny 

 fine fabrics are woven from its fibre mixed with wool. The fruit-trees of the 

 Mediterranean zone, such as vines, oranges, and citrons, are cultivated only in the 

 gardens, their fruit being sour and tasteless, and generally rotting before maturity. 

 The cereals cultivated in Nubia, either on the banks of the Nile or else in the 

 " Valley of Inscriptions," and in the steppes of the interior, belong to the same 

 species as those of Egypt. 



Fauna. 



The wild fauna of Southern Nubia does not differ from that of Kordofân and 

 the slope of the Abyssinian mountains. Lions, leopards, hyaenas, antelopes, and 

 gazelles, giraffes and ostriches, inhabit the mimosa forests on the banks of the 

 White Nile and the Bayuda steppe ; monkeys descend the Nile as far as Berber, 

 but neither the elephant nor the rhinoceros pass beyond the forest regions on the 

 middle Atbara. The last hippopotamus that has been seen towards the north was 

 killed in the Hannek cataracts about the middle of the century, although ancient 

 pictures represent it as inhabiting the stream below Syene. 



Millions of aquatic birds swarm in the islets and on the banks of the Nile. 

 Russegger has followed in the fresh mud deposited by the waters of the Nile the 

 traces of an animal whose footsteps resemble those of the quadrumana, and which 

 were directed from the water towards the shore ; but he did not see the animal 

 itself, the amanit, about which the Nubians tell strange stories. The termites, still 

 so much dreaded at Dongola, are not found farther north than the twentieth degree 

 of north latitude. 



The Nubians possess only one kind of domestic animal, the horse, which is tall 

 and endowed with special qualities. Evidently of Arab origin, like those of the 

 Kababish race bred in the neighbouring oases, these coursers, with erect heads and 

 thin legs white up to the knees, possess none of the beauty of their ancestors, but 

 they are astonishingly nimble and fiery ; they are fed on milk and durrah, and 

 occasionally on dates. The gallop is their usual gait ; they roam throughout the 



