DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11637#0148
and lower egypt. 133
We travelled south-west all the day, halted
about six in the afternoon, and spent the night
with the sand for our bed. After midnight a
copious dew began to fall, which wetted us as
thoroughly as if we had been exposed to a heavy
rain. We suffered greatly from the cold, but we
would not kindle a fire, for fear of being disco-
vered. At five in the morning we recommenced
our march : and as soon as the mist was dispersed,
we perceived herds of antelopes, and of wild oxen,
in every direction. These groups of living beings
exhibited moving scenes, the only ones that could
be interesting to us in the midst of an immense
void, and rendered the desert less naked, less
frightful, in a word, less desert.
I have already had occasion to speak of these
wild oxen, having found a few, which had been
domesticated by the Bedouins encamped between
Aboukir and Alexandria*. From what I then
observed, from what I have since been able to re-
mark in the desert, at the great distance at which
I have frequently seen them, from the very name
of bakkar el ouesh, or wild ox, which the Arabs have
given to it, I am confirmed in the opinion, that
this is a particular species of the ox, closely allied
to the zebu, if it be not precisely the same. The
axis, an animal of a different genus, allied both to
* See p. 92 of this volume.
k 3 the
We travelled south-west all the day, halted
about six in the afternoon, and spent the night
with the sand for our bed. After midnight a
copious dew began to fall, which wetted us as
thoroughly as if we had been exposed to a heavy
rain. We suffered greatly from the cold, but we
would not kindle a fire, for fear of being disco-
vered. At five in the morning we recommenced
our march : and as soon as the mist was dispersed,
we perceived herds of antelopes, and of wild oxen,
in every direction. These groups of living beings
exhibited moving scenes, the only ones that could
be interesting to us in the midst of an immense
void, and rendered the desert less naked, less
frightful, in a word, less desert.
I have already had occasion to speak of these
wild oxen, having found a few, which had been
domesticated by the Bedouins encamped between
Aboukir and Alexandria*. From what I then
observed, from what I have since been able to re-
mark in the desert, at the great distance at which
I have frequently seen them, from the very name
of bakkar el ouesh, or wild ox, which the Arabs have
given to it, I am confirmed in the opinion, that
this is a particular species of the ox, closely allied
to the zebu, if it be not precisely the same. The
axis, an animal of a different genus, allied both to
* See p. 92 of this volume.
k 3 the