THE PALMS OF EUROPE AND AFRICA. 51 



course of trade ; tliey are sold singly ac- 

 cording to their respective value, and often 

 constitute the dowry paid by the suitor to 

 the bride's father on marrying her. The 

 sand is heaped up round their roots, and 

 must be renewed every year, as it is usually 

 washed away by the torrents from the hills, 

 which sometimes form a brook, twenty feet 

 broad and three or four deep. Among the date 

 groves of wady Feiran, Burckhardt observed 

 several doum palms, as well as in other parts of 

 the peninsula. They belong to the Tebna 

 Arabs, and during the five or six weeks of the 

 harvests, the valley is crowded with people, 

 who erect temporary huts of palm branches, 

 and pass their time in great conviviality. At 

 Dahab, the plantations have a very different 

 appearance from those in most other places. 

 The lower leaves, instead of being taken off 

 annually, are suffered to remain and hang 

 down to the ground, forming an almost impene- 

 trable barrier round the tree, the top of which 

 only is covered with green leaves. A similar 

 palm tree, found growing wild in the Sinai 

 mountains, and thus clothed with drooping and 

 dead leaves, which completely conceal the 

 trunk, is engraved by Laborde in his " Visit to 

 Petra," and is copied in the Pictorial Bible, and 



