THE PALMS OF EUROPE AND AFRICA. 57 



parison wlaen Ulysses likens tlie princess Nau- 

 sicaa to a young palm tree growing by the 

 altar of Apollo in Delos. The same figure is 

 used in another part of holy writ to express 

 the vanity of idols. The prophet Jei'emiah, in 

 his ironical exposure of the folly of idol-worship, 

 says, " They are upright as the palm tree, but 

 speak not : they nuist needs be borne, because 

 they cannot go." However stately it may appear, 

 even though elegant as the prince of trees, it is 

 but a senseless, helpless log. Or it may refer, 

 as Calmet thinks, to the shape of the idols of 

 the heathen, which were of nearly equal thick- 

 ness throughout, the hands hanging close to the 

 sides, the legs close together, and in a very per- 

 pendicular attitude, " upright as a palm tree." 

 Such are the figures of Egyptian idols that 

 remain to this day. 



Dates are probably alluded to in 2 Chron. 

 xxxi. 5, (for so the word rendered Jioney in our 

 version should, it is thought, have been trans- 

 lated, and it is so given in the margin,) as part 

 of the tithes which the people readily brought 

 in for the support of the priests and Levites, 

 when Hezekiah effected his great reformation. 

 "As soon as the commandment came abroad, 

 the children pf Israel brought in abundance the 

 first-fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and dates, 



