Swmarubee.] THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 163 
Garden. The Egyptian wheat also (Triticum durum) would be a valuable acquisition, 
as yielding a very abundant crop upon almost sterile soils ; but with these are growing 
some other plants, which promise to be still more useful, if introduced into India, as the 
olive and the carob tree. The first, extensively cultivated in the driest and hottest 
parts of the south of Europe, aswell as in Egypt and in Syria, was seen by Mr. Elphin- 
stone near Caubul: it has grown for many years in the open air in the Botanic-Garden 
at Calcutta, and would flourish at Saharunpore, as, according to Delile, ** Jes vignes, 
. les olives, et les roses contribuent a la richesse de Fayoum,” which is nearly in the 
same latitude. The carob-tree (Ceratopiu siliqua), khurnoob shamee of Persian authors, 
first suggested (as well as the cork-tree) to me by Dr. Lindley, as apparently well 
suited to the climate of Northern India, would be a particularly valuable acquisition ; as, 
seeking its nourishment under-ground, it is independent of surface irrigation. It would 
be available in many places in years of scarcity or of famine, and in ordinary times 
for feeding cattle. That it is very retentive of life we may conclude from a fact men- — 
tioned by M. Boyé, of a tree supposed to be nearly 300 years,old, which was cut down 
by the French in their invasion of Egypt; thirty years afterwards, Ibrahim Pacha having 
cleared the ground and sunk wells in the neighbourhood, the return of moisture induced. 
the springing out of some branches, which in three years were from ten to twelve feet 
in height. The abundance of the produce of the carob—some trees yielding as much as: 
800 or 900 pounds of fruit or pods—renders these so cheap, that they are eaten by the 
poorest people, and even given to cattle, mules, asses, and horses, in Egypt, Syria, 
and the south of Europe.. During the Peninsular war, I am informed by Dr. Lindley 
(who learnt the fact from several officers who had served there), that the horses of the 
British cavalry were often fed, and thrived upon the seeds or beans, as they were there 
called, of the carob-trees. (v. also Loudon Encyc. of Plants, p. 868.) 
But, in fact, the whole of this tract is included in what Mirbel has so well designated 
as the temperate transition zone, which, commencing at the south of Europe and the 
north of Africa, extending eastwards, includes Asia Minor, Syria, and the Caucasian 
regions ; whence, as we have seen, some representatives of the flora extend even to the 
north of India, with which, in many respects, correspond the southern parts of Persia 
and Beloochistan, and the country northwards towards Mooltan and Caubul. In the 
northern parts of this zone, as the southern parts of Spain, Italy, and Sicily, and even 
of France and Greece, the sun is powerful, the heat considerable, and the ground 
dry and parched up in summer, with but a moderate degree of cold in winter. Many 
of the productions are such, that we see them extending to the southern parts of 
the temperate, and some even into the equinoctial zone: as the date, doum, and pal- 
metto palms,—several Asiatic and African mimosas and acacias,—Melia azedarach, Agave 
Americana, Yucca aloifolia, Aloe perfoliata, Nerium oleander, Lawsonia inermis, Calotropis 
gigantea and procera ; and with these are cultivated limes, lemons, and oranges, the 
jujube and pomegranate, with bananas, sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, sorghum, maize, 
millet, and rice. 
y2 ; But 
