1 840.] Account of Khyrpoor and the Fortress of Bukur. 1113 



wholesale price in Roree of a mun of prime quality at harvest time is two 

 rupees, but one, and even two muns of inferior dates are sold for half the 

 money. From Rs. 1| to 2| are usually paid for a mun in the bazar during 

 harvest, but the price doubles after they are dried and pressed, and ad- 

 vances progressively. At Shikarpoor they are more plentiful than at Roree, 

 and sell for about half the price. 



The date is extremely heating if eaten in any quantity. Five or six days 

 exposure to a bright sun are sufficient to dry them, and the peasants 

 remove them to their huts in circular baskets (pinda) made of date leaves 

 or tamarisk boughs, each containing about forty-five seers, and tread them 

 into a solid mass. The fruit will not keep beyond twelve months, in 

 consequence of the ravages of small maggots, called Mya and soosra. 



The date is raised from seed, and sends forth many shoots from the foot 

 of the stem. July and August are the best season for sowing seed, 

 but it is put in the ground as late as October, and springs up in about 

 a month. The tree bears fruit the third year in good moist land, but 

 takes four or five years to come to maturity in salt sterile soils. A fine 

 tree favourably situated, yields sometimes three muns of fruit, which is the 

 maximum ; a bad one not a third of the quantity ; a jureb containing from 

 eighty to a hundred trees, yields, on an average, a return of 320 rupees, but 

 government only leave the cultivator 20 rupees, or 1-1 6th, and levy a duty of 

 twenty pys on every mun of fruit exported to foreign countries, and 

 carried for sale to other paifts of Khyrpoor. 



The people assert there are trees at Sukhur and Rooree two hundred 



years old, but probably no part of the original stems remain ; they use 



the wood for door-posts, pillars, and water wheels, but never in the roofs 



of houses. Insects destroy the core, leaving it to appearance, perfectly 



sound, and it is not considered to last beyond five, or at the most, eight 



years. The English at Sukhur, either from ignorance of this circumstance, 



or the difficulty of procuring timber suitable for building, have converted 



the date into rafters. Trees are felled only when they give bad fruit, 



or have done bearing, and are worth from six to thirty anas, according 



to size. 



(To he continued.) 



