396 APPENDIX D. 



of diet to the inhabitants, and a wood that for hardness and 

 durability rivals any hitherto described. The earliest account 

 of the Argan tree known to us is a brief one by the celebrated 

 African traveller Leo Africanus, who visited Marocco in 1510. 

 Speaking of some of the customs of the Moors, Leo Africaniis 

 says : 'TJnto their Argans (for so they call a kind of olive which 

 they have) they put nuts ; out of which two simples they ex- 

 press a very bitter oil, using it for a sauce to some of their 

 meats, and pouring it into their lamps ' (' Purchas,' ii. 772). 

 And in another passage he describes the oil correctly, as ' of a 

 fulsome and strong savour.' The further history of the Argan 

 tree is given in a very full and careful account by the 

 late Sir W. Hooker, in the ' London Journal of Botany ' for 

 1854 (vol. vi. p. 97, Tab. iii. iv.), which, as the work is of 

 limited circulation, we here introduce. 



' Through the kindness and by the exertions of the Earl of 

 Clarendon, Chief Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Royal Gardens 

 of Kew have been put in possession of living plants and fresh 

 seeds of a tree or shrub very little known in Europe, little 

 known even to botanists, but highly esteemed by the Moors, in 

 those parts of Marocco where it is a native, for its useful quali- 

 ties, viz. the " Argan." Its economical properties are best 

 explained by the copy of a letter which his Lordship did me 

 the favour to communicate along with the plants and seeds, 

 from Henry Grace, Esq., British Acting Vice-Consul at Moga- 

 dor, addressed to J. H. Drummond Hay, Esq., Her Britannic 

 Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at Tangier ; both of which 

 gentlemen spared no pains in procuring the information and 

 seeds and living specimens ; an example we should be glad to 

 see followed by our consuls in other countries abounding in new 

 and useful plants. 



' " Mogador, November 7, 1853. 



' " Sir, — The Argan tree grows more or less throughout the 

 states of Western Barbary, but principally in the province of 

 Haha, and south of this town. The soil in which it is found is 

 light, sandy, and very strong ; it is usually seen upon the hills, 

 which are barren of all else, and where irrigation is impossible. 



' " I should imagine, from the appearance of some of the trees, 

 that they are from one to two hundred years old ; and a re- 

 markably large one in this neighbourhood is probably at least 



