DATE VARIETIES 261 



recently made by French authorities, it was learned 

 that some of the educated natives considered that the 

 name was originally Madqtil,* which would be perhaps 

 an ungrammatical variation on the word Deglet; this 

 is quite possible, but in any event the significance of 

 the name would be the same, pointing to an ad- 

 ventitious variety which could not be related to any 

 of those formerly known by the oasis dwellers. In 

 the United States the date is probably more often 

 called merely by the name of its locahty, Tafilalet,t 

 and in London, the principal market for the variety, 

 it regularly passes under the corruption of Tafilat. 

 The Tafilalet oases, in the Saharan part of 

 Morocco, have for centuries been famous for their 

 dates, which probably owe their excellence to the 

 intense and long-continued summer heat, the 

 abundant water supply, and the skilful cultivation by 

 the residents. Even in the seventeenth century we 

 are told that "Most of the dates which are brought 

 into Europe are transported from Tafilalet".! An 

 examination of the seedling dates of Spain suggests 

 that many of them are seedlings of Majhul; there is 

 a fine avenue of old palms near Malaga which can be 

 identified as this variety with a good deal of certainty. 

 Many of the seedlings grown on the Pacific coast of 

 Mexico seem to be of the same strain. Thousands of 



*Vulgar perfect passive participle of verb 4dqal, "to bear daqal 

 dates." There is an Algerian variety named Mudqal, which is the 

 correct form. 



fThis I consider to be the correct spelling. The name is founded 

 on Filal, a district in Arabia from which the original settlers are 

 reputed to have come. The initial Ta is a Berber word oftener seen 

 in the form Ait, and means "sons of," while the final syllable is 

 merely a grammatical addition to make the word feminine. The 

 name, therefore, tells that this is the district peopled by Filal immi- 

 grants. The French often use the contraction Tafilelt. 



JOgilby, John. Africa, p. 105. London, 1670. 



