The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1853-06-11

Insect AND VEsErABLE LIFE IN THE DESERT
Mr.. Bryant, in one of his letters to the New York
Erening Post, gives an account Of journey from
Cairo to Jerusalem across the smaller desert, from
which is extracted the following account of ami.
mated nature on the desert:
"We did not think of being exposed to the per-
secutlons OF the mosquitoes in this arid gion but
this day, as we were taking our lunch near a hol-
low, where the sand had moist appearance thew
came about Us, hungry and sharp bitten and with
them cloud of midges, sand hies extremely
troublesome. There were other living things Of
the desert with which We had now become IA mi .
llar-sand -colored lizards, one kind slender md
swift, which often shot across our path; another
cumslly shaped and slow, scarcely able TO get out
OF the way OF our camels; moths fluttering about
the MOWERS OF the DESERT and here and there but
terhy; snals clinglng to every shrub, and the sur
lace for several feet around srewn with their white
shells, now empty; land tortoises creeping beside
the way; sluggish chameleons, of which we took
several; black beetles, rolling along fresh balls of
camei's dung; and snakes, of which we killed a
small spotted one, said by Arabs to be venom
Gus. Now and then heron would rise from a
pool OF orackish water, where he sought his food,
and ravens, on their gisteniDg black wings, were
always lowering near US
"Close to our path were the burrows of the lack
all IN the hllocks, and the marks of their feet in
the sand, well those of the ierboa or leaning
rat, which has numerous holes all over the desert
Less frequently seen was the track of the gazelIe
delicate triangular footprint. The skeletons of
camel5 were scattered all along the way where
they had fallen and persisted, for when the camel
gives out under his load his owner knows that his
end is come, and leaves him to die In night or
two nothing is left of him but the bones
''lt was fine, cool day, with bracing north
westerly wind. The sky, which during the sirocco
that overturned our tent, had been filled with a
thick white haze, from the particles of sand blown
up and suspended by the force of the wind, had
become perfectly transparent, and the currents
of air passing through it to US directly from
the Mediterranean. In ascending bank we had
the sea before us-the solitary sea-murmuripp
along vast extent of uninhabited shore That
night we pitched our tent in a wide plain with a
steep low bank on the south under which the rain
water gathers in the winter, and forms kind OF
marsh. The mosquitoes came swarming into our
tent and unlike any of their tribe we had seen be
fore, plunged into the flame of our candles We
made the tent door fast, and in short time the
greater part OF them had singed their wings and
were heaped about the foot of the candles so that
we were little disturbed by them during the
night
Of the vegetation of the desert MIR. Bryant says:
"Of the shrubs of the desert nearly all are ever
greens; some are thorny, but the greater number
are OF Jointed growth, somewhat like the rush
in the younger or greencr stems of which the mos-
ture lmblbed from the soil during the winter il
secreted ind preserved in store for the dry sea son
supplying juicy pasturage for the camels
Among these shrubs the retem, or broom of the
desert, ID one OF the most conspicuous well az
the most beautiful, bearing a profuson of white
flowers veined with purple. The shrubs send their
roots far into the loose soil in search Of moisture
and the sand being heaped about them by the
winds, they form hiilocks, held in shape by a net
work OF roots, in which the jackall and jeboa have
| their habitations. The ground in many places a
this season was starred with a multitude of little
| howers-a small pink phlox, plant of the gera
nuim family, with purple bloom; another of The
mustard family, Of a delicate white, and severa
| compound flowers, both white and yellow, some
of them fragrant, all dwarfed by the meagre soil
but ma king the banks gay under the shrubs The
scarlet poppy showed itself to day in little groups
on declyity beside path"