98 OTIB COMMON PETJITS. 



had been taken to England as an ayah, and remained here 

 for some years, on her return was eagerly questioned as 

 to our relative advantages or disadvantages as compared 

 with Arabia. Her account of the luxuries and elegances 

 of civilized life spread a cloud of discontent over the 

 faces of her interrogators, and they were about to retire, 

 gloomily brooding over Bedouin deficiences, when the 

 returned traveller recalled them with the remark, " There 

 is, however, one thing wanting in England." " What is 

 it ? " was the anxious inquiry. " They have no date- 

 trees. I looked for them everywhere the whole time I 

 was there, but never saw a single one." The spell was 

 broken : envy changed to pity, and the crowd dispersed, 

 congratulating themselves on being so Hiuch more blest 

 than the Franks, and wondering how any people could 

 possibly exist in a country where there were no date- 

 trees. 



It is no great marvel that this tree should be regarded 

 with rather warm feelings in its native clime, for it seems 

 to have been kind Heaven's special gift to the inhabitants 

 of that part of the world ; and as the camel has been 

 called the "ship of the desert," so the date-palm might 

 well be termed, in the American sense of that word, the 

 "store of the desert," furnishing as it does all the neces- 

 saries, many of the comforts, and several of the luxuries 

 of Arab life. Affording a house to the settler and a tent 

 to the wanderer, providing either the one or the other 

 with forage for his cattle and food and drink of varied 

 and delicious quality for himself, offering him while 

 growing a cooling shade, and when cut down a warming 

 fuel, gladdening his eye with the sole shape of beauty 

 on which it can rest when gazing over the arid plain, 

 where its feathery form alone breaks the bare flat soli- 

 tude, this beacon of the wilderness is yet more endeared 

 by its association with the most priceless treasure of 

 these sun-scorched sands, for it is in this green setting 

 that the "diamond of the desert" sparkles, and where 

 the palm-tree is, there also will be water. Entwined, too, 

 must it be with desires and feelings deeper, if not more 

 engrossing, than those of physical necessity, for the date- 



