Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Llanos Of America, Where They Extend In The Direction Of A
Parallel Of The Equator, Are Three-Fourths Narrower Then The Great
Desert Of Africa.
This circumstance is very important in a region
where the winds constantly blow from east to west.
The farther the
plains stretch in this direction, the more ardent is their climate.
The great ocean of sand in Africa communicates by Yemen* with Gedrosia
and Beloochistan, as far as the right bank of the Indus. (* We cannot
be surprised that the Arabic should be richer than any other language
of the East in words expressing the ideas of desert, uninhabited
plains, and plains covered with gramina. I could give a list of
thirty-five of these words, which the Arabian authors employ without
always distinguishing them by the shades of meaning which each
separate word expresses. Makadh and kaah indicate, in preference,
plains; bakaak, a table-land; kafr, mikfar, smlis, mahk, and habaucer,
a naked desert, covered with sand and gravel; tanufah, a steppe. Zahra
means at once a naked desert and a savannah. The word steppe, or step,
is Russian, and not Tartarian. In the Turco-Tartar dialect a heath is
called tala or tschol. The word gobi, which Europeans have corrupted
into cobi, signifies in the Mongol tongue a naked desert. It is
equivalent to the scha-mo or khan-hai of the Chinese. A steppe, or
plain covered with herbs, is in Mongol, kudah; in Chinese, kouana.) It
is from the effect of winds that have passed over the deserts situated
to the east, that the little basin of the Red Sea, surrounded by
plains which send forth from all sides radiant caloric, is one of the
hottest regions of the globe.
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