There is heather and, higher up, also
ice and snow on the mountains, from whose tops the waters come that feed
these crocodile-haunted streams. So on the London "veldt" there were
lions, wild horses (perhaps striped like zebras), three kinds of
rhinoceroses--two of which were just like the common black rhinoceros of
Africa, though one had a woolly coat--elephants, hyaenas, hippopotami, and
that most typical African animal the Cape wild dog! All these, except the
elephants and hippos, can stand some degree of cold; and there is not the
slightest reason why the two last may not have flourished in some deep
river valley, very many degrees hotter than the hills above. To take an
instance still remaining nearer to Europe than the Great Rift Valley. The
Jordan Valley is very deep and very hot. Many species of birds are there
found which are resident in India, and not anywhere nearer. It is a kind
of hot slice of India embedded in the Palestine hills. The very large deer
and immense bison and wild oxen probably fed on the same low veldt as the
African animals. The bison were the same as those found in Lithuania, but
far larger. Numbers of the skulls, of quite gigantic size, have been found
in the brick earth.
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