THE DATE. 361 



are necessary for their comfort. Sir Walter Raleijjh 

 saw and (ieseribed these people. The palm offers to 

 this rude race, as well as to other tribes who inhabit 

 the Gulf of Darien and the watery lands between 

 the Giiarapitha and the mouths of the Amazon, a 

 safe habitation amidst the jrreat inundations to which 

 those countries are subject. But it affords them also, 

 in its fruit, its farinaceous bark, its sap abounding 

 with sup^ar, and its fibrous stalks, — pleasant food to 

 eat, wine to drink, and thread to make cordage and 

 hammocks. " It is curious to behold," says Hum- 

 boldt, " in the lowest stage of human civilization, the 

 existence of a whole race depending upon a single 

 species of palm, in a similar degree with those in- 

 sects which subsist but upon one species of flower*." 



Even the leaves of the date-palm have their uses ; 

 their great length and comparatively small breadth, 

 and their toughness, render them very good materials 

 for the construction of coarse ropes, baskets, panniers, 

 and mats. On the continent of Europe, palm- 

 branches are a regular article of trade ; and the reli- 

 gious processions, both of Christians and Jews, in 

 the greater part of Europe, are supplied from some 

 palm-forests near the shores of the Gulf of Genoa. 



The cultivation of the date-tree is an object of 

 high importance in the countries of the East. In 

 the interior of Barbary, in great part of Egypt, in 

 the more dry districts of Syria, and in Arabia, it is 

 almost the sole subject of agriculture. In the valleys 

 of the Hedjaz there are more than a hundred kinds 

 of dates, each of which is peculiar to a district, and 

 has its own peculiar virtues. Date-trees pass from 

 one person to another in the course of trade, and are 

 sold by the single tree ; and the price paid to a girl's 

 father, on marrying her, oflen consists of date-trees f. 



The palm is not wholly confined to the warmer 

 * Voyages, liv. viii. chap. xxiv. f Burckhardt's Arabia. 



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