12 BULLETIN 1125, U. S. DEPAKTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



to the 1st of March caravans of 100 camels were arriving and de- 

 parting daily, bringing in grain and all sorts of merchandise and 

 loading back with dates. He gives a most realistic account of the 

 great date warehouse, or " Dattelager," shown him bj^ the governor 

 of the city of " Siuah," having mud-brick walls in part surrounded 

 by moats or trenches, but without roof. Here each citizen might 

 store his dates, awaiting transportation or his supply for consump- 

 tion during the year. He notes that the stores included fruits of the 

 finest sorts, the Sultani and Rhazelli, as well as the common sorts used 

 as food for their domestic animals. But already the usual yearly ex- 

 portation of about 30,000 centners or hundredweight had been made 

 to the valley, which no doubt comprised largely the Saidy variety. 



The practice of storing dates in such warehouses had been noted, 

 it will be recalled, by Homeman in 1798. 



The earliest English notice of the Saidy variety is an article on 

 Siwa Oasis in the Geographic Journal, London, by Wilfred Jennings- 

 Bramly {20). On page 602 he says: 



They cultivate five kinds of dates. The best, the Ghrasali, is too juicy to be 

 exported ; the Faraghi, which will keep from three to four months, is exported 

 to Alexandria. The Saiedii is the common Arab food, of which every Bedouin 

 keeps a st6re, as it will keep good for a year. Out of it is made the i)aste 

 called ar-gool, or moona (mortar). The dates are trampled upon until they 

 adhere together into a paste, the sugar in the fruit crystallizing and helping i:o 

 preserve them. The Sultani. of which Siwa possesses but a few trees ... is 

 chiefly grown in the small oases. The Gargha [is] the least valued of all and 

 therefore kept for home consumption and camel food. All these dates are 

 dried on the sand of the date yards and carry away with them a good deal of 

 the soil, but to the Arabs this does not seem to detract from their excellence. 

 They are packed for sale in long, flat baskets made of the palm branches called 

 saa, which is a recognized measure for dates, so that you buy half or quarter 

 of a saa. Two saa, one slung on each side, are a camel load. 



This writer makes use of a very different transliteration for the 

 varietal names from that used by Cailliaud (5), but we can recognize 

 most of the varieties. He missed the commerce in the " Saiedii," 

 which gives it its greatest importance, but brings out its remarkable 

 keeping quality and the characteristic of the graining or sugaring of 

 the flesh after it has been packed for a time. 



Ball and Beadnell (i), in their account of the agricultural condi- 

 tions in Baharia Oasis, from a survey begun in 1897, state : 



Dates palms are taxed 15 milliemes per annum [equivalent to 71 cents]. The 

 number of trees at the 1897 assessment was 93,000, or about 15 per inhabitant. 

 The great article of produce in the oasis is therefore dates, and at the date- 

 gathering season the inhabitants are busily employed in gathering, drying, and 

 packing the fruit for export to the Nile Valley. Three-fourths of the whole 

 date production are exported. The dates are of excellent quality and find a 

 ready sale, the villages of the oasis being crowded with camels and traders 

 from the valley each November. A camel load of dates,^ packed in two plaited- 

 grass bags, is bought in the oasis for 500 milliemes and is said to be sold 

 in the Nile Valley for four times that sum, so that the Bedouins, to whom 

 the trading is almost wholly confined, even allowing for the difficulties of 

 transport, make a good profit. 



Doctor Ball, the chief of this survey, told the writer in September, 

 1913, that bjT^ far the greater number of date trees in Baharia Oasis 

 were of the Saidy variety. 



» About 320 pounds ; at pre-war prices bought for half a pound Egyptian, or about $2.50 

 United States money, and sold in the Nile Valley for £E2, or a fraction over 3 cents 

 per pound. 



