DATE VARIETIES 255 



tried to visit Hofhiif in 1912 but was forbidden by 

 the Turkish authorities to land, as they refused to 

 be answerable for my safety; and in this they were 

 absolutely justified, since earlier in the year a newly 

 appointed governor had been held up on the coast for 

 weeks, buying up some of the nomadic shaykhs and 

 collecting a big enough escort to force his way through 

 the rest who blocked his progress to his capital. 

 Since then the Arabs have risen and expelled the 

 garrison, and the province is plunged into an anarchy 

 which will probably make it impossible to secure any 

 more offshoots for some years to come. 



In Wadi Samail of Oman, however, I found 

 nearly 1000 palms of this variety, and was told by 

 natives that in some of the interior oases it was quite 

 common. The fruit is of good quality there, but is 

 admitted by its owners to be not equal to that of 

 Hasa; at Busreh and other coast localities it is inferior; 

 at Baghdad good. It may be concluded, then, that 

 this palm likes a dry situation, and, probably, sandy 

 soil. In Hasa it is irrigated copiously, and largely 

 from hot springs; this may be one of the secrets 

 of its excellence. It ripens September 1, or earlier, 

 and the yield is only moderate — from 100 to 125 

 pounds a year. It bears fruit at an early age after 

 being planted; offshoots are considered fairly hardy. 

 Only a limited quantity of fruit is placed on sale in 

 the Persian Gulf region nowadays, but it brings twice 

 the price of other varieties. It is usually packed in 

 five-gallon kerosene cans, to protect it from sand on 

 the caravan route to the coast; for the interior trade, 

 I presume that it is packed in skins and palm-leaf 

 baskets. In Oman one of the favorite methods of 

 keeping it is to extract the seeds and make it into 



