THE DATE-TKEE. 



155 



morial by the poets of the East, is as indispensable as the camel 

 to the inhabitants of the wastes of North Africa and Arabia, 

 and, next to the ' ship of the desert,' the devout Mussulman 

 esteems it the chief gift of Allah. Few palms have a wider 

 range, for it extends from the Persian Grulf to the borders of 

 the Atlantic, and flourishes from the twelfth to the thirty- 

 seventh degree of northern latitude. Gr roves of dates adorn 

 the coasts of Valencia in 

 Spain ; near Genoa its plan- 

 tations afford leaves for the 

 celebration of Palm Sunday ; 

 and in the gardens of 

 southern France a date-tree 

 is sometimes seen growing 

 among the oranges and 

 olives. But it never bears 

 fruit on these northern limits 

 of its empire, and thrives 

 best in the oases on the 

 borders of the sandy desert. 



The date-palm is propa- 

 gated by shoots, and the 

 female tree bears its flrst 

 fruits after four or live 

 years. It is said to attain 

 to an age of two centuries, 

 but is rarely left standing 

 longer than eighty years, 

 when the trunk is tapped 

 in spring, producing a kind 



of toddy, which is consumed in great quantities in 

 gerid,' or the long line of oases situated to the south of the 

 Atlas, and pre-eminently called the ' land of dates^ 



It is not to be wondered at that the tribes of the desert so 

 highly value a tree which, when in full growth, bears as much 

 as two hundredweight of dates, and by enabling a family to 

 live on the produce of a small spot of ground, extends as it were 

 the bounds of the green islands of the desert. It is considered 

 criminal to fell it while still in its vigour, and both the Bible 

 and the Koran forbid the warriors of the true Grod to apply the- 

 axe to the date-trees of an enemy. 



DATE TREE. 



Biledul- 



