6 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
wholly unfit for cultivation, being throughout either fand or 
ftone. The orange and lemon are found in the gardens here, 
but not in great quantities. The dates are good, though not 
of the moft efteemed kind. Yet they are found the moft pro- 
fitable article that the owner of the ground can cultivate. And 
accordingly thefe trees, with which the gardens are filled, not only 
relieve the eye from the dry whitenefs of buildings, and the fandy 
foil ; but well repay the owners for the trouble required to manage 
them, and for the fpace they occupy to the exclufion of almoft 
every thing elfe. The greater number of efculent herbs, or 
roots, that are common among us, may be raifed here, without 
any other difficulty than that of watering. The fruit trees that 
I have remarked as peculiar to the place, are the nebbek ( Pali" 
urus Athmai ) and the kifhne ( CaJJia Kejlota^) the latter of which 
is alfo found in the Weft Indies. The former bears a fmall 
fruit like the cherry in fize, and having a ftone of the fame 
kind ; but very different in colour and flavour, which more re- 
femble thofe of the apple. 
The chief monuments of antiquity remaining in any degree 
perfe£t, are the column, ufually but improperly termed of 
Pompey *, and the obelilk. On the former, not even fo much 
of the infcription as Pococke copied is now to be diftinguifhed. 
There is alfo a farcophagus or cheft of ferpentine marble in the 
great mofque, which is ufed for a ciftern. It is of the fame kind 
with that fo minutely defcribed by Niebuhr, at Kallaat el Kabfh 
in Kahira, and feems to be almoft as rich in hieroglyphics. It 
* Now fuppofed to have been ereded in honour of Severus. 
has 
