BOOK XIII. XVIII. 62-xix. 65 



the hand; its colour is yellow and its juice has an 

 attractive sweet taste, with a touch of astringency. 

 It has a large and very hard shell inside, which is iLsed 

 by turners for making curtain-rings, and inside the 

 shell is a kernel which has a sweet taste while fresh, 

 but which when dried goes on getting continually 

 harder and harder, so that it can only be eaten after 

 being soaked in water for several days. The wood has 

 a rather uneven grain that is most attractive, and it 

 is consequently very much admired by the Persians. 

 XIX. Also thorn-wood is equally esteemed in the same 

 country, that is, the wood of a black thorn, as it 

 lasts without decaying even in Mater, and is conse- 

 quently extremely serviceable for the ribs of ships ; 

 timbers made of a white thorn rot easily. It has sharp 

 thorns even on the leaves, and seed in pods that is 

 used instead of oak-galls in dressing leather. The 

 blossom has a pleasing effect in garlands and also 

 makes a valuable medicine ; also the tree distils gum. 

 But its most valuable property is that when cut do\\Ti 

 it shoots up again two years later. This thorn grows 

 in the neighbourhood of Thebes, where oak, persea 

 and olive are also found, in a forest region nearly 

 40 miles from the Nile, watered by springs that 

 rise in it. This region also contains the Egyptian 

 plum-tree, which is not unUke the thorn last men- 

 tioned; its fruit resembles a medlar, and ripens in 

 the winter, and the tree is an evergreen. The fruit 

 contains a large stone, but the fleshy part, owing to 

 its nature and to the abundance in which it grows, 

 provides the natives with quite a harvest, as after 

 cleaning it they crush it and make it into cakes for 

 storage. There was also once a forest region round 

 Memphis with such huge trees that three men could 



137 



