166 THE DATE-PALM DESCRIBED. 



Like youthful maids, when sleep descending, 

 Warns them to their silken beds."* 



What the vine is to the Italian, the oak to the Englishman, the 

 cocoa-nut tree to the Polynesian, is the date-palm to the Arab. And 

 more far more. This single tree has peopled the Desert. A civili- 

 zation, rudimentary compared with that of the West, sufficiently 

 advanced if you contrast it with that of the Malay or the South 

 Sea Islander, finds in it its standing-point, its centre, its support. 

 And without it the tribes of the Sahara would cease to be.-f 



The wealth of an oasis is computed by the number of its palm 

 trees. All of them, however, are not fruitful ; for the date is 

 dicecious. It has its males and its females. The males have flowers 

 furnished with stamens only, and form a closed-up, folded, grape-like 

 ball, previous to the ripening of the pollen in an envelope called 

 the spathe. The females, on the contrary, bear clusters of fruit also 

 wrapped up in a spathe, but incapable of development until fecun- 

 dated by the pollen or dust of the stamens. To multiply the date- 

 trees, the Arabs do not sow the kernels of the fruits, though they 

 germinate with extreme facility, for it is impossible to tell beforehand 

 of what sex the tree will be ; they prefer, therefore, to detach a slip 

 from the trunk of a female tree, and this becomes fruitful at the 

 expiry of eight years. 



The male trees blossom, says Mr. Tristram, J in the month of 

 March, and about the same time the case containing the female buds 

 begins to open. To impregnate these, a bunch of male flowers is 

 carefully inserted and fastened in the calyx. Towards the beginning 

 of July, when the fruit begins to swell, the bunches are tied to the 

 neighbouring branches. 



The dates are ripe in October, at which time any premature rain 

 is fatal to the crop, though the roots require a daily watering. Not 

 less injurious are east winds in March and April. The tree when it 



* Moore, " Lalla Eookli " The Fire-Worshippers. 

 t Martins, " Du Spitzberg au Sahara," p. 567. 

 t Tristram, " The Great Sahara," pp. 95-98. 



