But if one remembers such places as Cordoba, Seville, Florence, Genoa, Sicily, Athens, Constantinople, the great cities of Ephesus, Corinth, etc., of St. Paul's Epistles, Persia, Arabia, Palestine, and Carthage, surely the countries which have had such splendid histories deserve a chapter to themselves. What achievements in war, in art, in literature, and in romance are connected with these lands bordering the Mediterranean or fringing the great deserts of Sahara and central Asia! The animals which belong to such country are also interesting. It is the home of the camel, ass, horse, donkey, not to speak of the giraffe, rhinoceros, gazelle, antelope, zebra, lion, and hyena. The plants are full of interest too, and some of them are of great importance to man. The Olive, Orange, Fig, Roses, and many perfumes and spice-trees, are natives of scrub. In fact, it is the real centre of all gums, frankincenses, and myrrhs. As man depends upon plants and animals, and as animals also are dependent on the plant world, it is the climate which really is responsible for everything. The world of plants is entirely and exactly regulated by the character of the climate. What, then, is the climate of scrub? Those countries enjoy brilliant sunshine, cloudless skies, and yet there is sufficient rain to permit of irrigation and to prevent the unmitigated desolation of the desert. When, as has happened in many of these famous lands, the forests have been cut down and the aqueducts have been neglected, they become arid, dry, and almost useless. But when carefully and industriously worked, as they were in the days of Greece, Carthage, and Rome, they produce results which will for ever live in the history of the world. The meaning of such half-desert climates and of the scrub which covers them has been already suggested. The scrub is trying to occupy the desert. If one takes the sternwheel steamer at the First Cataract of the Nile and passes southwards, the desolation of black rock and "honey-coloured" sand of the Libyan Desert is at first unbroken. But here and there the thorny trees of the "Seyal". Acacia show the beginnings of a scrub region. Much further to the south, those acacias and others become great forests which extend all along the south of the Sahara Desert and furnish the valuable gums of the Soudan. If one passes southward through this forest of acacias, it alters in character. The trees become taller, closer together, and climbing plants and undergrowth become more frequent. Still further south, one finds the regular tropical forest which is characteristic of the tropics everywhere. [Illustration: _Photo G. F._ GATHERING OLIVES IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE] The most interesting part, which is also the richest in big game, is the intermediate zone between the desert and the acacia forest or scrub.