CHAPTER VIII
SCRUB
Famous countries which were covered by it—Trees which are colonizing the desert—Acacia scrub in East Africa, game and lions—Battle between acacia and camels, etc.—Australian half-deserts—Explorers' fate—Queen Hatasu and the first geographical expedition recorded—Frankincense, myrrh, gums, and odorous resins—Manna—Ladanum—Burning bush—Olives, oranges, and perfume farms—Story of roses—Bulgarian attar of roses—How pomade is made—Cutting down of forests and Mohammed.
A scrub or Half-desert does not seem at first sight to be in the least interesting.
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.