FAUNA AND FLORA OF SINAI, PETRA, AND WADY 'ARABAH. 65 



caroub (Ceratonia) or locust-tree, and fig ; a very handsome tamarisk 

 [T. articulata, Vahl.) reached a height of 30 or 40 feet, with bright 

 green foliage, very refreshing and home-like after the dull gray or 

 lifeless green of the desert. The olives are of enormous age. They 

 usually have unbranched trunks, 2 or 3 feet in height, then perhaps 

 divided, and at 7 or 8 feet the leafy canopy, browzed below to a level 

 height by cattle, begins. The average height of the tree is 20 to 25 

 or 30 feet. Old trees have often mere shells of their trunks remaining. 

 I measured the two largest I saw, a few miles north of Gaza ; their girth 

 was 18 and 20 feet respectively at 2 feet from the ground, a size which 

 was maintained, or very nearly so, till the trunk forked. 



At Ascalon, which Laurence and I visited at a gallop just before dark, 

 I gathered Calycotome villosa, Linn., in the sands, a pretty yellow shrubby 

 pea-flower. Ascalon is a wilderness of shifting sands. The small space 

 of remaining earth is inhabited by a few Arabs, from whom I got my first 

 Jewish coins. Several pillars of marble and black granite lie about the 

 ruins of the crusading fort, but none are in position. 



Frequently dogs with unmistakable traces of jackal parentage were 

 seen along here. I was assured it is by no means uncommon for 

 these animals to interbreed along this part of the Mediterranean 

 seaboard. 



The chief crop showing was of lentils. I saw bean-stalks a foot and a 

 half high in the first week of January. 



A few of the commonest British plants, as Capsella bursa-pastoiis, 

 Silene inflata, Convolvulus arvensis, and Rumex obtusifolius, occur along 

 here. 



A handsome tree introduced from the East is very common. It is the 

 Melia azederach, or Pride of India. It is deciduous, and was only bearing 

 fruit, as I saw it, along the enclosures or by the villages. Lycium 

 europceum, Linn.; Rubia Olivieri, A. Rich.; Ephedra alata. Dene.; 

 Asparagus aphyllus, Linn., and A. acutifolius, Linn., are the larger plants, 

 which help to stop up the gaps in the prickly pear fences. 



At Yebnah, and thence to Jaffa, Narcissus Tazettce, Linn., was in flower. 

 Some damp low-lying patches were white with it. Other species were 

 Ruta graveolens, Linn., Erodium sp. (?) {E. bryonicBfolium, ?); Retama 

 retam, Forsk. (in flower); Lithospermum callosum, Linn.; Echiochilon 



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