[Every attempt has been made to replicate the original book as printed. The footnotes have been located at the end of the etext. Some typographical errors have been corrected. A list follows the etext. No attempt has been made to correct or normalize printed botanical names. The footnotes have all been moved to the end of the etext. Some illustrations have been moved from within paragraphs for ease of reading. (etext transcriber's note)] THE DESERT WORLD. "For I have learned To look on Nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity." WORDSWORTH THE DESERT WORLD. FROM THE FRENCH OF ARTHUR MANGIN. Edited and Enlarged _BY_ _THE TRANSLATOR OF "THE BIRD, BY MICHELET."_ WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. FREEMAN, FOULQUIER, AND YAN DARGENT. LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 1869. Preface. The area of our present work would be very limited if we understood the word _Desert_ in its more rigorous signification; for we should then have only to consider those desolate wildernesses which an inclement sky and a sterile soil seem to exclude for ever from man's dominion. But, by a license which usage authorizes, we are able to attribute to this term a much more extended sense; and to call _Deserts_ not only the sandy seas of Africa and Asia, the icy wastes of the Poles, and the inaccessible crests of the great mountain-chains; but all the regions where man has not planted his regular communities or permanent abodes; where earth has never been appropriated, tilled, and subjected to cultivation; where Nature has maintained her inviolability against the encroachments of human industry. Thus understood, the picture we are about to trace assumes not only vast proportions, but an infinite variety of aspects. Here and there, it is true, our eyes will rest on the gloomy spectacle of rugged solitudes, where the soil churlishly refuses almost every kind of product, where the boldest traveller cannot penetrate without a shudder, and where the very beast of prey is rather a visitor than an inhabitant: lugubrious regions, on whose threshold one might write the legend written, according to Dante, on the gates of hell-- "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate." (All hope abandon, ye who enter here.)