Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877. Vol XX - No. 118Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877. Vol XX - No. 118
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Few countries twenty-five leagues long by ten wide have such an assortment
of climates as Grand Kabylia. From the Mediterranean on the north to the
Djurjura range on the south, a distance of two hours' ride by rail if there
were a railway, the ascent is equal to that from New York Bay to the summit
of Mount Washington. The palm is at home on the shore, while snow is
preserved through the summer in the hollows of the peaks. This epitome of
the zones is more condensed than that so often remarked upon on the eastern
slope of Mexico, although it does not embrace such extremes of temperature
as those presented by Vera Cruz and the uppermost third of Orizaba. The
country being more broken, the lower and higher levels are brought at many
points more closely together than on the Mexican ascent. It happens thus
that semi-tropical and semi-arctic plants come not simply into one and the
same landscape, but into actual contact. Each hill is a miniature Orizaba,
so far as it rises, and hundreds of abrupt hills collected in a space
comparatively so limited so dovetail the floras of different levels as in a
degree to cause them to coalesce and effect a certain mutual adaptation of
habits. Good neighborhood has established itself rather more completely
among the vegetable than with the human part of the inhabitants.
What more amiable example of give-and-take than the intertwining of birch
and orange, the thin ghostly sprays of the hyperborean caressing the
fragrant leaf and golden globes of the sub-tropical? This, and other
conjunctions less eloquent of contrast, may be seen on the headland of
Zeffoun or Cape Corbelin. They stand out from a prevailing background of
the familiar forest trees of temperate Europe and America--the ash, elm,
beech, oak, fir and walnut. The orchards, above those of oranges and
lemons, are of figs and olives. The cork-oak covers considerable tracts,
but is less attended to than in Spain. A non-European aspect is imparted by
the tufts of cactus and aloes which abound in the most arid localities.
[Illustration: THE DJURJURA RANGE.]
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