144 PALMS. 



desert so highly value a tree which, 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, and rarely disappoints 

 the industry that has been bestowed on its culture. It is con- 

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

 the Bible and the Koran forbid the warriors of the true God 

 to apply the axe to the date trees of an enemy. 



In Nubia, between Wadi Haifa and Khartum, there are at 

 least a million of date-palms, which yield the extortionary 

 government of the Pasha of Egypt an annual revenue of as 

 many piastres. The date trees of Egypt and Nubia not only 

 amply provide for home consumption, but furnish above 60,000 

 hundredweight for exportation to Syria and Turkey, besides 

 a large quantity which the Nubian merchants sell in Sennaar, 

 Kordofan, and Darfur. Here the Phoenix disappears, while the- 

 Doum (Hyphcene thebaica), distinguished from most other 

 palms by its branching trunk, each branch being surmounted by 

 a tuft of large stiff flabelliform leaves, assumes a conspicuous 

 place in the landscape. Its fruits, which are of the size of a 

 small apple and covered with a tough yellow lustrous rind, have 

 a sugary taste, and serve for the preparation of sherbet. The 

 old leaf-stalks with their thorns and sheathes remain attached 

 to the trunk, increase its dimensions in an extraordinary degree, 

 and render the task of climbing it next to impossible. The 

 chief seat of this beautiful palm are the banks of the Nile, 

 in the region of the cataracts. In Kordofan the Delebl palms 

 form large clumps, with tamarinds, cassias, adansonias, and 

 various mimosas. Straight as an arrow and perfectly smooth- 

 rinded, this magnificent tree rises to the height of a hundred 

 feet, bearing large fan-like leaves, attached to foot-stalks ten 

 feet long, and armed with mighty thorns. From ten to twenty 

 large bunches of nuts, as big as a man's head, hang beneath 

 the fronds, but unfortunately these fine-looking fruits disap-» 

 point the taste. 



Thus various forms of palms flourish along the banks of 

 the Nile, but in general Africa has a less number of these 

 trees to boast of than either Asia or America. On the other 

 hand neither India nor Brazil have palms of such vast com- 

 mercial importance as the Cocos butyracea, and the Elaeis 

 guineensis, the oil-teeming fruit trees of tropical West Africa. 



