APPENDIX. 45 



in Raback, a port in the Red Sea, where I difcovered this 

 Angularity, that it grew in the fea within low-water mark. 

 When we arrived at Mafuah, in making a plan of the har- 

 bour, I faw a number of thefe in two iflands both uninha- 

 bited, and without water, the one called Shckh Scide, the 

 other Toulahout. Thefe two -iflands are conftantly over- 

 flowed by fait water, and though they are ftrangers to frefh, 

 they yet produce large Rack-trees, which appear in a flou- 

 rifhing ftate, as if planted in a fituation defigned for them 

 by nature. 



The Arabians, it is faid, make boats of this tree. Its 

 wood is fo hardened by the fea, and alfo fo bitter in tafle, 

 that no worm whatever will touch it. Of this tree the Ara- 

 bians alfo make tooth-picks, thefe they fell in fmall bundles 

 at Mecca, and arc reputed to be favourable to the teeth, 

 gums, and breath. 



The reader will have obferved frequent mention of fome 

 trees found in the defert which our camels would not eat. 

 Thefe are the Rack tree, and the doom, or palma thebaica 

 cuciofera*. Thefe grow where they find fait fprings in 

 the fand ; the defert being fo impregnated with foffile fait 

 in every part of it, that great blocks and ftrata of it are 

 feen everywhere appearing above ground, efpecially about 

 lat. i8°. 



H 2 The 



* Theoph-raft. hift. plants, lib. ill. cap, 8. lib. iv. cap. 2. Plin, Nat. Hid. lib. xiii. cap, 

 5. J. Bauh, lib. iii. cap. 86. 



