SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. 23 



cave tombs, yet the pyramid range of flood basins brings the Nile 

 flood water to it. The camping places of the Siwa caravans are all 

 around, and many of the men have been over the desert trail. 



The first man met was a Bedouin who had a few palms and a 

 little garden which he watered from a shadoof. One of his " Sewi " 

 palms, he claimed, went back to the time of Mohammed Ali, which 

 would make it about 100 years old. He said he had been to Siwa 

 and that they had the same palm there. The people in Siwa 

 called it the Saidy. When I asked him if he was absolutely certain 

 that the date called the Saidy by the people of Siwa was the same 

 as the " Sewi," he declared that he was and expressed astonishment 

 that there could be any doubt about it. 



Some time later at the esbet, or village, where a man told me that 

 the first caravan with dates from Siwa had arrived and was en- 

 camped some distance away, he showed me a handful of the dates 

 he had obtained from the caravan and insisted that they were " Sewi," 

 though the dates were quite unmistakably what we know as the 

 Saidy. 



When these Bedouins, who have known this caravan trade from 

 boyhood, assume it as a matter of common knowledge that the dates 

 of the wahat (Saidy) and those of the Gizeh ("Sewi") are the 

 same, I believe it leaves no reasonable doubt of their being one and 

 the same variety. 



In December, 1921, further confirmation of this was secured at 

 Kirdasa, a native village on the border of the desert, about 5 miles 

 northwest from the Pyramids of Gizeh. Its territory lies above the 

 last canal, but much of it is flooded when the irrigation basins are 

 filled. The chief industry is date growing, and the Amhat, Sewi, 

 and Hayany are its chief varieties. The omda of the village states 

 that they have about 20,000 trees of the " Sewi " variety. The village 

 is near the mouth of Wadi el Natrun, through which the great caravan 

 trail from Siwa Oasis and westward has passed for many centuries. 

 It was from " Kardassi " that Frederick Horneman set out with a 

 company of merchants of Aujila in September, 1798, becoming the 

 second modern European explorer to reach Siwa. The father of 

 the present omda had made the journey to Aujila, and the omda 

 and his brother, 75 years old, have been familiar with this caravan 

 traffic from boyhood, the great camping places of the caravans being 

 near their home. They stated that while the caravans brought a few 

 dates of what they regard as the choicer variety, the Ghrasali, the 

 great volume of the export dates from the wahat, or oasis country, 

 is of the Saidy variety, known to the merchants as the " Wahi," be- 

 cause it is the date they obtain from the wahat. Both men asserted 

 positively that the Saidy which the caravans brought from Siwa 

 Oasis and the " Sewi " of their " belad " or country were the same. 



It was their opinion that the " Sewi " came originally from the 

 wahat, probably from the " belad " of Siwa. They believed that 

 the variety had been in their village as much as 150 years, and they 

 themselves had trees that they thought were more than 100 years 

 old. The older man pointed out trees which he said were as tall as 

 they now are when he was a boy. Though they were inclined to 

 believe that the " Sewi " variety had come from seed instead of 

 " shettla," as they had never heard of any " shettla " being brought 



