SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. 11 



oases of the Libyan Desert and the Nile Valley. And Herodotus 

 bridges the historical gap between the ancient Egyptian and the 

 modern accounts. We have the " Sayd " or " Saydeh " specifically 

 mentioned by Cailliaud (9) as the export date of " Syouah " and 

 " Bahryeh," though the " Sultani " is referred to as the choicer 

 variety. This is explained by the well-known preference by the 

 desert dwellers for a dry date rather than a soft date. Beadnell in 

 1898 and the writer in 1913 found the Saidy to be the great export 

 date both of Kharga and Dakhla. Sheik Abu Bakr of Dakhla then 

 positively stated : " We have this same date in all five of the western 

 oases" (including Farafra). 



Considering the great age attained by date palms and the slow 

 change in oriental customs and institutions, there can be little doubt 

 that while the variety was not specifically named for Dakhla and 

 Kharga, the Saidy was the export date of those oases in Cailliaud's 

 time as it is to-day. 



How much farther back its history extends can only be conjectured, 

 but a great date industry takes years to establish in any country. 

 Considering that in these oases a century ago was a culture so exten- 

 sive and well established that caravans from the Nile cities in quest 

 of these dates were of frequent occurrence over well-established trails, 

 a commerce old in the time of the Pharaohs, the origin of the Saidy 

 variety vanishes in the dim past of that marvelous land. 



With so extensive and long established a date industry, based on 

 the excellence as well as the paclring and keeping qualities of the 

 Saidy variety, it is remarkable that later writers on the dates of 

 Egypt have given it such scant recognition. 



Delchevalerie (10) , " Chief Gardener of His Highness the Khe- 

 dive," in a rather exhaustive pamphlet, " The National Tree of the 

 Egyptians, the Date Tree," published in 1873, describes by name 30 

 varieties of dates but makes no mention under those names of the 

 Saidy or " Wahi." His No. 18, however, is " Dattes de I'Oasis 

 Syouy " or, in the Arabic transliteration, " Balah Syouy," of which 

 he says : " Fruits fragrant, very sugary, and of good quality. This 

 variety grows in the Oasis of Syoua, or Jupiter Ammon, in the great 

 Libyan Desert." It must be noted that as in the case of this writer's 

 No. 10 "Balah Yemany," and No. 29 "Balah Sukhouty," this is 

 purely a locality name, not a descriptive, variety name, as his No. 28 

 " Soubah el Arous," " the bride's fingers." The description was evi- 

 dently taken from dates imported from " Syoua " Oasis, where no 

 variety under the name of " Syouy " has been listed by any traveler, 

 but agrees well with that of the Saidy. their great export date for a 

 century past. Tliis listing of " Balah Syouy " from the " Syoua " 

 Oasis seems to throw light on the origin of the variety now so 

 extensively grown in Gizeh Province and known there as " Sewi," 

 to which reference will be made later. 



Rohlfs (2S) , whose expedition explored the Libyan oases in 1873-4, 

 states, on the authority of Stephan (^^), p. 32), that the annual ex- 

 portation of dates from " Siuah " Oasis was 30.000 centners, or 

 3,000,000 ■^ pounds, and that during the export season from October 



^ The estimate of Heeren (16) was a maximum of 2,700,000 pounds. If Mr. Brown (6) is 

 correct in placing the present output of dates from Sewa at " between 740 and 770 tons 

 per year " the export from this oasis would seem to have declined by one-half since 

 Rohlfs' survey. 



