Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1885-05-06
THE DESOLATE REGIONS.
Life in the Waste Places Of
the World.
How Human Beings and Animals Live
Under Adverse circumstances

said after his recent journey in north
ern Thibet that an enormous amount
Of animal life was supported by the
scanty heritage growing on these bleak
half sterile plains that form the highest
plateau in the world. some $4,000 feet
above the sea He said the wild yaks
there must number millions, and that
full grown yak weighs from 1000 to
1900 pounds. Natures chemistry
evolves these great masses OF flesh
from the poor heritage of a region so
lofty that its lakes are frozen over un-
til nearly June. though they are 600
miles nearer the equator than we are.
Explorers tell us that not only does
animal life abound, but that man can
live in some of the most desolate parts
of the globe. It is a mistake to sup
pose that the Sahara desert is merely
a useless sandy waste. Much of it
lacks not so much cultivable land as
industrious hands to make the vast
expanse of withered Gases blossom
again. The Mussulman sect known as
the Senousians has for years been Dig
ging wells, irrigating the land, and
turning many hundreds of barren
acres into gardens. Twenty-four
years ago it planted its headquarters in
the desert near the western border of
Egypt, built reservoirs, began planta-
tions, erected converts, and now a
populations of 5000 people live at
| JarabCb, where the soil has been re-
stored to fertility by their labor. There
are large areas in the Sahara, that
need only rain or irrigation to cover
them with verdure. Through these
regions pass the caravan routes, along
which the $4,000 camels engas ed in
the Saharan commerce bear their
burdens.
Mr.. Anderson. civil engineer, who
last year completed sixteen years of
| explorations in South Africa between
the Orange and Zambesi rivers, says
that the rain that falls for few
weeks every year in the great region
known as the Kalahara desert covers
the blackened verdureless plain with
splendid vegetation. Game is album
dant there, especially lions, leopards
and ostriches, and he has counted in
this desert twenty-five lions in a
troop, and has seen 200 ostriches in
one flock. Beast and birds find sus-
tenance in this region where only a
few Bushmen hunters live. Far
northeast of them on the semi-arid
steppes of Kordofan and Darfur mill
lions of sheep and camels exist on the
scanty pasturage Of that desert region.
The earliest Attic explorers found in
the little Spitzbergen archipelago
where. it is believed no human being
had ever lived-herds of reindeer up
turning the snow with their hoofs and
noses to get at the lichens on which
they fed. Many reindeer live as far
north as Littleton Island, and several
scores of them were killed by the
Hayes and Polaris expeditions. Musk
oxen, or their traces, have been found
along the shore of the great frozen
sea as far north as explorers have
attained. Lockwood, far north of the
supposed limits of animals life, found
traces of this wonderful quadruped,
which grows fat on the tender shoots
OF the Arctic willow, and ploughs up
the snow for moss and lichens.
OF all parts Of the earth the Aatar-
tic regions alone are comparatively
destitute of life Few species of living
things in the vegetable or animal
kingdom can endure the rigor Of the
South Polar regions. No terrestrial
quadruped inhabits the land within
the Antartic Circle, and whales and
seals are the only mammals that enter
its area. Summer in the Artic re-
gions. with its abundant life on land
and in the air and sea, presents an
animated and cheerful scene com
pared with the utter desolation that
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