DATE PALM AND CHAM^EROPS. 



exhausted. Thus Nature attains the same end by 

 various means ; the acorn, they say, is buried by a 

 provident squirrel ; the winged fruit of a Maple or an 

 Ash is dragged underground by a hungry worm ; but 

 the young Date tree has the power to plant itself. 



We read that in certain parts of Egypt date stones 

 are boiled to soften them, and the camels and cattle 

 are fed upon them. In Spain they are burnt and 

 used for a dentifrice. The text-books tell us that 

 cellulose is stored in the seed of the date. 



As the name "Phrenix" testifies, the Date Palm was 

 carried westward by the Phoenicians. On the Syrian 

 coast, the Cornice of the Levant, the Greek sailors 

 first saw the sacred tree. Thence they took it to the 

 island of Delos to adorn the temple of the Sun God. 

 The earlier Greeks knew nothing of the Palm, for the 

 Iliad makes no mention it ; but in the Odyssey the 

 shipwrecked hero likens Nausicaa to the stately tree 

 which he had seen at Delos. Some people never lose 

 their self-possession, nothing can possibly take them 

 aback. Brought quite suddenly, naked and dripping 

 as he was, face to face with a remarkably good- 

 looking princess, Odysseus has a pretty compliment 

 ready to hand. "You are as beautiful as a Palm 

 Tree ! " Nausicaa is propitiated at once. 



These same Phoenicians must have brought either 

 drawings or descriptions of the Palm to the distant 

 west at a very early date. For this tree gives its 

 name to the first letter of the Irish alphabet. 



The name Tamar, that is "Palm tree," was 

 common among Hebrew maidens ; we find it again in 

 Tadmor or Palmyra, the palm-crowned city of the 

 desert. 



