Though Arabia possesses some districts of remarkable fertility, which enjoy almost perpetual verdure, yet the greater part of that vast peninsula consists of burning deserts lying under a sky rarely traversed by a cloud, and stretching into boundless plains, where the eye meets nothing but the uniform horizon of a wild and dreary waste. These naked deserts are encircled, and sometimes intersected, by barren mountains, which run in almost continuous ridges and in different directions from the borders of Palestine to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Their summits tower up into rugged and insulated peaks, but their flinty bosoms supply no humidity to nourish the soil; they concentrate no clouds to screen the parched earth from the withering influence of a tropical sky.
Were it not for the wadys-verdant valleys lying here and there among the hills-and the various wells or watering stations supplied by periodical rains, the greater portion of Arabia must have remained unpeopled, and uninhabitable. In a country like this, where whole years occasionally pass away without a refreshing shower, the possession of a spring is not unfrequently the most valuable property of a tribe. There are large tracts, however, where the luxury of water, as it may well be called, is unknown, and where the desert extends for many a day"s journey without affording the traveller the welcome sight of a single well.
Although the high steppes of central Asia are probably the genuine and original country of the horse, yet in Arabia that generous animal attains the highest degree of spirit and swiftness. The tender familiarity with which the horses are treated trains them to habits of gentleness and attachment. When not employed in war or in travelling they loiter about the tents, often going over numbers of children lying on the ground, and carefully picking their steps lest they should hurt them. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop. Their sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip. Their powers are reserved for the movement of flight and pursuit, and no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand and the stirrup than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; but if their friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till he has recovered his seat.
In the sands of Arabia the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burden not only supplies the wandering Arab with the greater part of his simple wants: it serves also to secure his immemorial independence by placing the desert between the enemy and himself. Thus the Bedouin has ever been indomitable; and while in other parts of the world we find that the possession of an animal-the sable, the sea-otter-has entailed the curse of slavery upon whole nations, the dromedary in Arabia appears as the instrument of lasting freedom.
As the lion reigns in Africa, so the tiger is lord and master of the Indian jungles. He is a splendid animal-elegantly striped with black on a white and golden ground; graceful in every movement-but of a most sanguinary and cruel nature. The lengthened body resting on short legs, lacks the proud bearing of the lion; while the naked head, the wildly rolling eye, the scarlet tongue constantly lolling from the jaws, and the whole expression of the tiger"s physiognomy, indicate an insatiable thirst for blood, a pitiless ferocity, which he wreaksindiscriminately on every living thing that comes within his grasp. In the bamboo jungle on the banks of pools and rivers, he waits for the approaching herd; there he seeks his prey, or rather multiplies his murders, for he often leaves the nylghau⑥ still writhing in the agony of death, to throw himself upon new victims, whose bodies he rends with his claws, and then plunges his head into the gaping wound, to absorb in deep and luxurious draughts the blood whose fountains he has just laid open.
Nothing can be more delightful than the aspect of a Javanese⑦ savanna, to which clumps of noble trees, planted by Nature"s hand, impart a park-like character; yet, even during the daytime, the traveller rarely ventures to cross these beautiful wilds without being accompanied by a numerous retinue. The horses frequently stand still, trembling all over, when their road leads them along some denser patch of the jungle, rising like an island from the grassy plain; for their acute scent informs them that a tiger lies concealed in the thicket but a few paces from their path.
Both the panther and the leopard⑧ are widely diffusedthrough the tropical regions of the Old World, being natives of Africa, Persia, China, India, and many of the Indian islands; so that they have a much more extensive range than either the tiger or the lion. The manner in which they seize their prey, lurking near the sides of woods, and darting forward with a sudden spring, resembles that of the tiger; and the chase of the panther is said to be more dangerous than that of the lion, as it easily climbs the trees and pursues its enemy upon the branches.
On turning to the wilds of northern Australia, new aspects of savage life rise before our view. With new plants and new animals, a new variety of the human race makes its appearance,⑨differing from the Malayanin figure, in physiognomy, in
language, and in many of its customs and manners. Thoughthis race occupies one of the lowest grades in the scale of humanity, it still offers many points of interest to the observer, and claims our attention both by its qualities and its defects.