THE DATE. 357 



sert often carry with them a little bag of dried dates, 

 as their only or their chief" subsistence during; journeys 

 of many hundred miles. In parts of the East, the 

 dates that fall from the cultivated trees are left on 

 the o-round for the refreshment of the wayfaring man. 



In the liedjaz, tlie new fruit, called ruteb, comes 

 in at the end of June, and lasts two months. The 

 harvest of dates is expected with as much anxiety, 

 and attended with as general rejoicing, as the vintage 

 of the south of Europe. The crop sometimes fails, 

 or is destroyed by locusts, and then a universal 

 gloom overspreads the population. The people do 

 not depend upon the new fruit alone ; but during the 

 ten months of the year when no ripe dates can be 

 procured, their principal subsistence is the date-paste, 

 called adjoue, which is prepared by pressing the fruit, 

 when fully matured, into large baskets. " What is 

 the price of dates at Mekka or Medina?" is always 

 the first question asked by a Bedouin who meets a 

 passenger on the road *. 



There is, indeed, hardly any part of the tree which 

 is not serviceable to man, either as a necessary or a 

 luxury. When the fruit is completely ripened, it will, 

 by strong pressure, yield a delicious syrup, which 

 serves for preserving dates and other fruits ; or the 

 fruit may be made into jellies and tarts. The stalks 

 of the bunches of dates, hard as they are in their 

 natural state, as well as the kernels, are softened by 

 boiling, and in that condition are used for feeding 

 cattle. Dates, with the addition of water, afford by- 

 distillation a very good ardent spirit, which, as it 

 does not come within the prohibition of the 

 Koran against wine, is much used in some of the 

 Mahommedan countries, and answers the same 

 purpose of false excitement as the brandy or the 

 malt spirits of other nations. Palm wine is also 

 * Burckhardt's Arabia. 



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