Chap. LIV. PECULIAR SITE OF WU'SHEK. 
59 
the site itself the moisture percolates in several small 
dells and hollows ; and thus, besides a good crop of 
wheat, several small groves of date trees are produced. 
The largest of these groves, skirting the east side of 
the town, contains about 800 trees, while a little 
further east another dell winds along, containing 
about 200 palms, and, joining the former, to the 
north of the village, widens to a more open ground 
richly overgrown with tamarind trees, which are en- 
twined with creepers and clad with herbage. This 
grove, which encompasses the whole of the north side 
of the place, exhibits a very pleasant aspect. Several 
ponds are formed here ; and abundance of water is 
found in holes from a foot to two feet in depth. 
Going round this depression, I entered the town 
from the north-east quarter, and here found a large 
open space laid out in fields of wheat, kitchen-gardens, 
with onions, and cotton-grounds, all in different 
stages of cultivation : most of the beds where wheat 
was grown were just being laid out, the clods of dry 
earth being broken and the ground irrigated, while 
in other places the green stalks of the crop were 
already shooting forth. The onions were very closely 
packed together. Everywhere the fertilizing element 
was close at hand, and palm trees were shooting up 
in several detached clusters ; but large mounds of 
rubbish prevented my taking a comprehensive view 
over the whole, and the more so as the village is 
separated into four detached portions lying at a con- 
siderable distance from each other, and forming 
