244 EXTRACTS FROM 
the north of Germany, is very much mistaken ; for it is always 
undulating, often deeply intersected by valleys and crowned 
by hills. But it is always lonely, without the smallest vestige 
of plant life, and inhabited on its outskirts: only by most’ 
peculiar animal forms specially adapted to it. 
Still, to the traveller the desert seems grand and beautiful— 
a type of eternal rest: lovely, too, in tone, glowing under the 
scorching African sun, and tinted by stones of varied hues— 
bright yellow, dark, and sometimes even mottled—which form 
singular and charming combinations of colour. 
No living thing did we see as the train rattled through the 
wilderness, except some Bedouins with white burnouses and 
long guns, who appeared from behind a hillock. Pure 
Berbers live in this part of the desert—free sons of the 
soil, brave, predatory, utterly unrestrained and lawless, and in 
their way the happiest of men. The various tribes differ much 
in appearance and costume, as well as in their weapons and 
their individual characteristics. Still Egypt, so far as the 
beauty and picturesqueness of its free races is concerned, is 
very inferior to Morocco on the one hand and Asia on the 
other ; for the south-western part of that quarter of the globe 
is also inhabited by Semitic Arabs. 
Towards noon cultivation again appeared, in the form of a 
moist green spot in the midst of the yellow waste. This was 
the great oasis of H]-Fayfim, a thoroughly well-tilled circular 
patch of land, surrounded on all sides by the desert, the large 
lake of Birket-el-Karun forming its boundary on the west and 
separating the arable ground from the waste. Before arriving 
at the station of Abouksor we passed through a small portion 
of this oasis, which was well-farmed, fruitful, and chiefly planted 
with sugar-cane. We had now reached the terminus of the 
line, where a dilapidated station and a few buildings belonging 
to it, together with a sugar factory, form a little colony. The 
reader must not suppose that this is an: establishment on the 
