CHAP. XI. MODERN TREES AND PLANTS. 79 



deed, if the statement of Strabo* be true, that, *' in 

 all (Lower) Egypt the palm was sterile, or bore an 

 uneatable fruit, though of excellent quality in the 

 Thebaid," this tree is now cultivated with more suc- 

 cess in Lower Egypt than in former times, some of 

 the best quality of dates being produced there, par- 

 ticularly at Korayn, near the Delta, where the kind 

 called A'maree is superior to any produced to the 

 N. of Nubia. 



Few timber trees are now grown to any great 

 extent either in Upper or Lower Egypt. Some 

 sycomores, whose wood is required for water wheels 

 and other purposes ; a few groups of Athuh, or 

 Oriental tamarisks, used for tools and other im- 

 plements requiring a compact wood ; and two or 

 three groves of Sont, or Mimosa Nilotica, valuable 

 for its hard wood, and for its pods used in tanning, 

 are nearly all that the modern inhabitants retain of 

 the many trees grown by their predecessors. But 

 their thriving condition, as that of the mulberry 

 trees (planted for the silkworms), which form, with 

 the Mimosa Lebbek, some shady avenues in the 

 vicinity of Cairo, and of the Cassia fistula (bearing 

 its dense mass of blossoms in the gardens of the 

 metropolis), show that it is net the soil, but the in- 

 dustry of the people, which is wanting to encourage 

 the growth of trees. 



The Egleeg, or balanites, the supposed Persea, 

 no longer thrives in the valley of Nile ; many 

 other trees are rare, or altogether unknown ; 

 and the extensive groves of Acanthus, or Sonf, 

 are rather tolerated than encouraged, as the de- 



* Strabo, xvii. p. 5G3. 



