Its
Principal Features Of Soil And Climate Offer Nothing Different From
Other Portions Of The Sahara, Or The Saharan Regions Of Algeria And
Morocco.
The Belad-el-Jereed, therefore, may be properly called the
Tunisian Sahara.
Shaw observes generally of Jereed: - "This part of the
country, and indeed the whole tract of land which lies between the
Atlantic and Egypt, is by most of the modern geographers, called
Biledulgerid, a name which they seem to have borrowed from
Bloid-el-Jeridde, of the Arabians, who merely signify the dry country;
though, if we except the Jeridde, a small portion of it which is situate
on this side of Lesser Syrtis, and belongs to the Tunisians, all the
rest of it is known by no other general name than the Sahara or Sahra,
among those Arabs, at least, whom I have conversed with."
Besides the grand natural feature of innumerable lofty and branching
palms, whose dark depending slender leaves, are depicted by the Arabian
poet as hanging gracefully like the dishevelled ringlets of a beautiful
woman in distress, there is the vast salt lake, El-Sibhah, or literally
the "salt plain," and called by some modern geographers the
Sibhah-el-Soudeeat, or Lake of Marks, from having certain marks made of
the trunks of the palm, to assist the caravans in their marches across
its monotonous samelike surface.
This vast lake, or salt plain, was divided by the ancients into three
parts, and denominated respectively, Palus Tritonis, Palus Pallas, and
Palus Libya.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 114 of 196
Words from 30589 to 30839
of 53114
