316 



tar as the right bank of the Indus ; and it is 

 from the effect of winds, that have passed over 

 the deserts situate to the East, that the little 

 basin of the Red Sea, surrounded by plains, 

 which send forth from all sides radiant caloric, 

 is one of the hottest regions of the Globe. The 

 unfortunate Captain Tuckey * relates, that the 

 centigrade thermometer keeps there generally in 

 the night at 34°, and by day from 40° to 44°. 

 We shall soon see, that even in the westernmost 

 part of the steppes of Caraccas, we seldom found 

 the temperature of the air, in the shade, and 

 remote from the Sun, above 37°. 



These physical considerations on the steppes 

 of the New World are linked with others^ more 

 highly interesting because they are connected 

 with the history of our species. The great sea 

 of sand in Africa, the deserts without water, are 

 frequented only by caravans, that take fifty days 

 to traverse them -{\ Separating the nations of 

 Negro race from those of the Moorish and Beri- 

 ber J, the Sahara is inhabited only in the Oases. 



have made by corruption cobi, signifies in the Mungal tongue 

 a naked desert. It is equivalent to the scha-mo or hhan-hai of 

 the Chinese. A steppe, or plain covered with herbs, is in 

 Mungal, kudah; in Chinese, houang. 



* Exped. to explore the River Zaira, 1818, Introd. p. li» 

 + This is the maximum of the time, according to Major 

 Rennell (Travels of Mungo Park, vol. ii, p. 335). 

 J The Shiiha, and the Kabyles. 



