418 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



epoch is expected with as much anxiety, and attended 

 with the same general rejoicings, as the vintage or the 

 harvest-home in Europe. ' ' What is the price of dates at 

 Mecca or Medina?" is always the first question asked by 

 a Bedouin who meets a passenger on the road. A failure 

 of the crop, either from the ravages of the locusts or the 

 exhaustion of the trees, which are seldom known to pro- 

 duce abundantly more than three or four successive years, 

 causes a general distress, and spreads a universal gloom 

 over the inhabitants. The process of impregnating this 

 tree artificially, by scattering the pollen over the female 

 flowers, is still practised by the modern Arabs, exactly as 

 described by Pliny and Ammianus. The date-groves 

 around Medina are cultivated by farmers, called nowdk- 

 hele, who were assessed by the Wahabees according to the 

 number of trees in each field. For every erdeb of dates 

 the Nejed tax-gatherers levied their quota either in kind 

 or in money according to the current market-price. At 

 Safra the plantations, which extend to four miles in length^ 

 belong partly to the inhabitants of the village and partly to 

 the neighbouring Bedouins (the Beni Salem). Every small 

 grove is enclosed by a mud or stone wall, and interspersed 

 with hamlets or low insulated huts. The trees pass from 

 one individual to another in the course of trade ; they 

 are sold singly, according to their respective value, and 

 often constitute the dowry paid by the suitor to the girl's 

 father on marrying her. The sand is heaped up round 

 their roots, and must be renewed every year, as it is usually 

 washed away by the torrents from the hills, which some- 

 times form a brook twenty feet broad and three or four 

 deep. Here the Wahabees imposed heavy assessments, 

 taxing not only the produce of the groves and gardens, 

 but the very water used in irrigating them. In Wady 

 Feiran Burckhardt mentions the jamya as the best species, 

 of which the monks of Sinai send large boxes annually to 

 Constantinople as presents, after having taken out the 

 kernel and put an almond in its place. Among these 

 date-groves he observed several doum-trees, as well as in 

 other parts of the peninsula. They belong to the Tebna 

 Arabs, and during the five or six weeks of harvest the 

 valley is crowded with people, who erect temporary huts 

 of palm-branches, and pass their time in great convivial- 

 ity. At Dahab the plantations have a very different ap- 

 pearance from those in Hejaz. The lower branches, in- 



