Deserts 121 



Then, again, in the Delta of Egypt there is much 

 more cultivation than there was some years back. 

 There are more cornfields, more pastures, and even 

 little forests are springing up, so that its general aspect 

 is quite altered, and this change is accompanied by a 

 change for the better in the climate also. Alexandria 

 has rain, even to excess ; and Cairo, which used to 

 have at most five or six light showers a year, now has 

 three or four times as much. The increase in the 

 rainfall seems to be distinctly traceable t© the increase 

 in the amount of vegetation. 



So impressed are the Americans of the West with 

 the connection between want of trees and want of rain, 

 that they now set apart a day in each year, which they 

 call ' Arbor-day,' and dedicate to the planting of trees. 

 Before this idea was started there had been such reck- 

 less cutting of wood in the mountains and timber 

 regions as to cause quite a dearth even of fire-wood, 

 especially in what is called the ' arid-region ' of the 

 Western States. Now, however, more than six million 

 trees are said to be growing on formerly barren lands, 

 and Kansas alone has 250,000 acres of artificial forest 

 growing up — a change which it is expected will so 

 benefit the whole region that it will cease to be arid. 



In this land we have little idea of the magic change 

 produced in the appearance of the landscape by rain 

 falling upon the hot, parched surface in southern lati- 

 tudes. There, growth is so rapid that, in Ceylon for 

 instance, a green hue begins to colour the saturated 

 ground after a single day's rain, almost between dawn 

 and sunset, where all before was dreary brown. 



But the change which takes place in the desert of 

 Nubia is far more wonderful. During the dry season 



