Identifier: storyofafricaits03brow (find matches)
Title: The story of Africa and its explorers
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Brown, Robert, 1842-1895
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Publisher: London : Cassell
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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hese apertures, Sir Lambert Playfairtells us, are inhabited by numbers of X /citxrhriff fih- Erdkundi; 18S0. 84 THE 8T0BY OF AFRICA. tislies (Cyprinodontidce and Ghromidit), whichlive freely exposed to the air and hght,and breed under normal conditions. Tiieirunderground life is merely an episode, and,as it were, an incident in the voyages whichthey undertake between one hcdir and another.When they reach the neighbourhood of awell, they are forced up with the water, orobey an instinct to mount to the surface.Accordingly, when it is intended to plant a the Sahara, oases, called Ziban, are fornaedby building dams across little ruiming streamsand obstructing water in canals. Waterabsorbed by permeable beds constitutes theoases with shallow wells; in other cases, oaseswith artesian wells; and, tinally, there are theexcavated oases so characteristic of the Souf.But wherever an artificial oasis is formed—Avherever, in brief, water reaches the sand—fertility in this warm, equable climate
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REMAINS OF ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE AT EL DJEM, TUNISIA. (From a Photograph in the Paris-Tunis Collection.) date-grove, the industrious Souafa removethe entire course of gypsum, and plant theirpalms in the water-bearing sand beneath.Then, to use the words of Sir Lambert Play- fair, their green summits rise above the plain around, thus forming orchards exca-vated like ants nests, sometimes 8 metres(24 to 25 feet) beneath the level of theground.* By utilising this water in the best part of * Handbook to Algeria and Tunis, p. 18. is the certain result. In a few weekswhat seemed the acme of barrenness iscovered with verdure. Palms areplanted and. before long, bear the ^oases^^dates that are the all-in-all ofthe desert wanderers food. Other crops soonfolloAv, and from far and near the news of thenew paradise spreads to the nomad tribes,until the spot, which a year or two before Avasentirely uninhabited, or, at best, only sup-ported a few thirsty families, becomes a THE SAND OF THE SAHARA. S5 thi

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