Animal Life in the Egyptian Desert

by Algernon Blackwood

It is, of course, a matter for wonder that any life can exist in the desert at all. The absence of water and vegetation, and the scarcity of even insects, seem to make it impossible for any living thing that subsists by eating and drinking to survive. The arid, barren wastes of sand and stone and mud could not support a mouse, much less a larger animal. There is not even a shred ot moss or lichen anywhere and at first, when one sees the small isolated plants and thorny shrubs, the wee coloured flowers, and the occasional little sprouts of spear grass known to the Bedouin as “Ithmum” and “Dahram,” one seeks in vain for an explanation of their growth. That explanation is not easily found. There is heavy dew at night, and no doubt they make the most of the very rare bursts of rain, which, when they come make waterfalls of every ridge and roll the boulders noisily down the narrow gully beds. But the water sinks into the dry soil as into a thirsty sponge; none of it remains on the surface. The denudation in these torrential downfalls of the winter months is very great, but the benefit to the scanty plant-life must be small enough. Yet along the bottom of every valley may be seen, not infrequently, the little thorny shrubs the camels eat; and perhaps, like their devourers, they have a special means of storing moisture for future use.

But, when it comes to animal-life, the wonder is far greater. Presumably the gazelles, the foxes, the jackals, hares, hyenas and the little jerbils, whose footsteps in the sand (sometimes, too, whose skeletons) one finds, know, even better than the Bedouins, the exact spots where the pools of water hide at such great distances apart. At any rate, the travellers’ notes of the animal and bird life they have encountered in these parched and desolate solitudes are full of interest and⁠—surprise. At a stone’s throw from Helouan one thinks, of course, life stops short. Instead, it is just beginning. The silent desert is full of life. The ants, to start with, are fairly plentiful. Not in communities, be it understood, for an ant-heap is never seen; but solitary and very busy individuals, with recurved abdomens, hurrying along as though living were the simplest matter in the world. The very minute Egyptian ant, too, is common everywhere. Scorpions beneath turned stones are frequent enough, and lizards dart about in the fierce sunshine as happily as if the plenty of Italy and France lay easily within their reach. Perhaps they never drink! They are plentiful enough, and increase as you go towards Suez and the Red Sea. Geckos and agamas, the latter a peculiar flat-bodied, large-headed, uncouth little creature, are among the ones most frequently seen; but the most striking are the spiny-tailed varieties, which love the soft leaves of the “seyal” plant whenever they can find it. There is another kind that the weaker-minded among the Arabs dread, because they say it throws stones at them with its tail. Its energetic, quick movements apparently flick the smaller stones to a considerable distance.

There are snakes, too, though rarely seen, and to be found mostly in the hills further east towards the Red Sea. The horned viper (kakar) is greatly dreaded by the Arabs; but no one merely walking in the desert hereabouts appears to have seen one. A doctor, however, interested in the desert life tells me he caught a specimen with a bird in its mouth it had just killed, and another having the remains of a wagtail in its stomach. The jackals come, of course, as their habit is, very close to human habitations, and may often be heard crying after nightfall or in the early morning on the outskirts of Helouan. The hyrax is another desert animal, too shy to be often seen. It has a variable distribution, being dependent to a large extent upon the amount of rainfall, so that a colony may completely disappear from a district after a dry season. It has a sharply-pointed muzzle and small rounded ears, and the body is covered with a thick coat of nearly uniformly-coloured hair, deep brown as a rule. It lives in rocky or stony places, in communities, like rabbits, haunting holes beneath the rocks and is found, too, frequently in certain districts in the rocky watercourses. Its feet are of remarkable structure, being very flat and pad-like, so that it can run with ease on the smooth rocky slopes. The toes are leathery in appearance, there being four on the front and three on the hind feet. The presence of two pairs of well-marked front teeth, one in the upper and the other in the lower jaw, also gives a characteristic appearance which enables the skull of a hyrax to be readily recognised. Mr. Hume of the Cairo Survey Department mentions these particulars. As a rule, these animals seem to keep within approachable distance of the eastern banks of the Nile. The same writer⁠—referring for a moment to the insect-life mentions the rarity of butterflies, yet, oddly enough, the abundance of moths; and speaks of the beautiful blue dragonflies (one meets them flitting down the streets of Helouan), the locusts, which fall an easy prey to the ubiquitous lizards, the wasps and hornets and crickets, too, that one meets in the Wadis at almost any distance from the houses. There was a giant locust here last night in the hotel dining-room, which flew like a bat about the walls and dashed itself repeatedly against the ceiling, to the terror of the ladies, until, finally, a waiter “nabbed” it with a napkin and a glass, to everybody’s great relief. The “praying insects” (Mantidae) are also common enough, and fully bear out their reputation of being the most predacious and bloodthirsty of creatures, “to which character,” says Hume, “must be added also a considerable amount of curiosity, as they used to come on to the table and watch the writer’s every movement, turning their peculiarly-shaped heads on one side while doing so. On another occasion one caught a moth, and, perched on the tent-rope, held it in the fore legs and calmly tore it to bits, at the same time eating the fragments with much satisfaction.” They are from two to three centimetres long, and of a bright green colour. “Spiders are comparatively rare,” he adds, “but a large grey form and quite harmless variety accompanied the writer for a good part of the journey, travelling with the tent, and appearing every evening. Very abundant, too, are the false spiders (Solifugae), which come into the tent at night, and one of which, over ten centimétres in length, has the reputation among the Arabs of being a deadly enemy to the scorpion.” It is this variety, probably, that is locally spoken of round Helouan as a tarantula.

The bird-life is, perhaps, more interesting than any other form of desert life. One notices the flocks of kites, large grey birds, the moment one gets to Cairo. They circle, sometimes at an enormous height, sometimes close above the roofs and streets, and their peculiar sharp, petulant cry is distinctly one of the Cairo sounds⁠—when the traffic allows it to become audible. Round Helouan they are very plentiful indeed, and in an hour’s walk through the desert hundreds may be observed in spots where they have scented food, most likely in the form of a dead baby camel. Vultures, too, are common, especially the carrion vulture, the well-known “rakham” of the Arabs. They will follow human beings for very long distances, with intentions that may easily be imagined. One is almost startled to hear larks and see the darting swallows, too; the latter, preparing for migration to Europe, being very numerous towards the end of March. The desert-lark (Alaemon desertorum) is a joy to see and hear; it has grey plumage, a long slender beak and a very rapid run; and another species, the finch lark, with short, thick beak, is also readily recognised by the peculiar and sudden manner in which it drops to the ground. Wagtails, too, flit everywhere, even in the most desolate and arid gorges; and there is a kind of chat, very small, and equally ubiquitous, noticeable by the vivid contrast of black and white in its plumage These birds add greatly to the charm of the desert. One watches them with a sort of admiration⁠—plucky bits of life in the heart of such appalling loneliness. Their shrill twittering is the only sound one hears for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Hume, in his survey of desert birds, also makes mention of owls⁠—the eagle owl and the church owl⁠—and says that nightjars have been met with, too, though never seen. He heard them crying at night. Barron, another writer who accompanied the survey expeditions, further describes great flocks of heron-like birds he saw going northeast, hundreds at a time. But these birds, called by the Arabs “kark,” were apparently not true desert birds. They resemble the stork, and were exceedingly shy, too shy to permit approach. They seemed to come from the fields along the river, and merely settled in the desert; being probably he says, the white-plumaged herons or egrets which are found so abundantly in the meadows bordering the Nile. They were migrating.

Among the rodents found in this portion of the desert, but apparently well distributed through the other deserts, too, is the small, sandy grey, three toed jerboa. It is a little desert kangaroo rat with a long tail and its holes are everywhere abundant. Closely allied to the jerbil, it is, nevertheless far less frequently seen. At nightfall, apparently, the jerboa finds its courage, and takes it boldly in its three-toed hands. Curiosity impels it to investigate man. “One evening,” says Hume, “when the writer was sitting on a hillock, a jerboa came up, and leapt round in a series of wide circles, but on the slightest movement at once made off. On several occasions they entered the tents at night and jumped about over the sleepers, but were far too quick in their movements to be caught. One made persistent endeavours to dig into the tent under the flaps, desisting when the latter were sharply tapped, only to begin again a few seconds later. One very cold and windy day two of the Arabs brought in a small specimen. On being taken out and put under one of the bsilla bushes, it had evidently formed the impression from the warmth of the tent and its good reception that it had fallen among friends, for it jumped back to the tent, and, arriving there, curled itself under the blankets.”

A doctor here, who has been interesting himself in various bacteriological experiments, and in a general study of the desert animal-life, tells me that the jerbil, the desert mouse, never drinks at all. It simply despises water. One that he kept in captivity for over a year lived the whole time without a single drop of water. He kept it in a large glass jar, feeding it with grain dry grain that contained a very small percentage of moisture He placed water for it, but the jerbil never looked at it. The jerboa, he tells me, has the same predilection for its nourishment “dry.” A friend of his had recently been out to shoot the addax, a rare type of antelope that haunts extremely desolate parts of Northern Africa and Arabia, and, of course, is not to be found in the desert immediately round Helouan. His friend, in fact, went forty days on a camel to come up with it. The addax equally despises water; its meat is very succulent eating, and there is nothing abnormal in the condition of its blood. But it never drinks. It stands over three feet high, is yellowish white in colour, with a brown mane and a fringe of the same hair on the throat. Beth sexes carry horns, which are ringed and form an open spiral. The habits of this desert antelope resemble those of the gemsbok, and it is hunted by the Arabs for its flesh, and also to test the speed of their horses.