DATE. 137 



many, who could not forbear eating too plentifully, died. 

 There is one kind of date described by the ancient au- 

 thors, that would inebriate and overturn the brain. 



The Babylonian or royal dates were most esteemed : 

 these, in ancient times, were reserved for the kings of 

 Persia, and are said to have grown only in one orchard 

 or park at Babylon, which was annexed to the Persian 

 crown. The dates at Jericho, in Jewry, were also in high 

 estimation with the ancients, who made both bread and 

 wine of them. Pliny, who has written at great length 

 upon this fruit, mentions forty-nine kinds of dates, vary- 

 ing according to the country where they grew ; some of 

 which were white, black, or brown, some were round, 

 others in the shape of a finger, some very small, and 

 others he describes as being as large as the .pomegranate. 

 One species of the date, the Lotus, was much cultivated 

 in Italy, and is by some supposed to be the fruit by 

 which the companions of Ulysses were enchanted and 

 forgot their native country. 



Gibbon, in noticing the natural productions of Assyria, 

 says, that the face of the country was interspersed with 

 groves of innumerable palm-trees : and the diligent na- 

 tives celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hun- 

 dred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches, 

 the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skilfully 

 applied. 



Italy and the coast of Spain have been renowned for 

 palm-trees more than two thousand years ; " but the 

 dates," says Pliny, " never come to maturity or ripeness, 

 nor were they ever known to grow without being planted :" 

 this caused him to state that they were foreign trees. 



In one part of Persia, as well as in Upper Egypt, many 

 families subsist almost entirely upon this fruit, the 

 gathering of which is a time of merriment in the desert, 

 attended with the song and the dance. 



