23G THE HOLY LAND. 
attending Arabs, to descend from his horse, for 
the purpose of collecting either the one or the 
other. All nature seems to droop ; almost every 
animal seeks for shade, which it is extremely dif- 
Produc- ficult to find. But the chamceleon, the lizard, the 
tions of the 
Desert. Serpent, and all sorts of beetles, basking, even 
at noon, upon rocks and in sandy places, exposed 
to the most scorching rays, seem to rejoice in 
the greatest heat in which it is possible to exist. 
This is also the case in Egypt, where no desert 
is so solitary but reptiles and insects may be 
observed ; proving that the ostrich, and other 
birds found there, are by no means, as some 
writers have maintained, at a loss for food. It 
is more probable that the desert offers to them 
nourishment they could not easily procure 
elsewhere. A very interesting volume of 
natural history might be made, relating only 
to the inhabitants of the Desert : they are much 
more numerous than is commonly believed : 
and if to these were added the plants which thrive 
only in such a situation, with an account of those 
extraordinary petrifactions found in the African 
deserts ; the various jaspers, and other siliceous 
concretions abounding in the sandy tract be- 
tween the Red Sea and the Nile, as well as all 
over Arabia Petrcea and Mauritania ; the descrip- 
tion would be truly marvellous. The enterprise 
