PRODUCED BY MAN. g31 



entur palmarum sylvae tanquam in prima patria gnatae. Earum 

 fructus sunt frequentissimi et sapidissimi.' 



Professor Robert Hartmann (^Die Nigritier,' pp. ii6, 117, 1876) 

 gives the most recent account with which I am acquainted of the 

 date-palm as cultivated in Africa. His remarks as to the existence 

 in Africa of really wild forms of Phoenicc, e.g. Phoenix spinosa s. 

 humilis, the 'Kjom-kom' of Senegal, with small well-flavoured 

 fruits, and the Phoenix recUnata, a very variable form, to set off 

 against the Phoenix sijlvestns indica which has so often, though not 

 correctly, been said to be botanically indistinguishable from the 

 cultivated Phoenix daciylifera, are specially valuable. He insists, 

 as I had also done previously to becoming acquainted with his 

 views, upon the priority of date, which the Egyptian monuments, 

 with date-palms figured upon them, can show us compared with 

 the Assyrian or Babylonian similarly adorned. The only argument 

 which I can imagine— I have not seen or read of its being suggested 

 by any one else — to be likely to be set against this one based upon 

 the monuments, is one, partly indeed based upon ancient Egyptian 

 records, but partly also upon stories recorded for us, with every 

 indication of their being true, by Herodotus. It might run thus. 

 Brugsch (cit. linger, 1. c. 1839, p. 106; * Geographic der alter 

 Aegypten,' p. 74) tells us that palm- wine is enumerated in the 

 Egyptian Tribute-lists as having been one of the articles received 

 from Babylonia. Herodotus, i. 193, informs us that wine was made 

 from dates in Babylonia ; and in a couple of passages, iii. 20, 32, 

 he relates what has become, since his time, the very commonplace 



to the most cultured of mankind. [Since writing as above I have met with an 

 address delivered September 24, 1879, t>y ^^ traveller Nachtigal before the German 

 Association for the Advancement of Science at Baden-Baden, In this Address, de- 

 livered in deprecation of certain schemes for the utilisation of certain parts of the 

 Sahara, Herr Nachtigal insists that whatever other results might accrue from the 

 letting in of the waters of the Mediterranean upon the salt marshes of the district 

 referred to by Martins, as cited in the text above, the ruin of the date-culture, the 

 most valuable treasure of that region, would probably be one also. For * the date- 

 palm,' says Herr Nachtigal, ' wants fresh water for its roots, solar rays for its 

 crown, and fears rain and atmospheric moisture. It is well known that date- 

 plantations in the neighbourhood of the sea produce only second-rate fruit; and 

 there is some ground for doubting whether the regions exposed to the doubtful 

 benefits of the Mediterranean are really the regions which produce the best dates 

 in the world and thereby have earned the name Beled el-Dscherid, that is, literally, 

 the Land of the Date-palm. Would it not be rash to endanger a cultivation, the pro<» 

 duce of which is ounted by millions of money, for very uncertain results ?'] 



