SAIDY DATE OE EGYPT. 23 
cave tombs, vet the pyramid range of flood basins brings the Nile 
flood water to it. The camping places of the Siwa caravans are all 
around, and many of the men have been over the desert trail. 
The first man met was a Bedouin who had a few palms and a 
little garden which he watered from a shadoof. One of his " Sewi " 
palms, he claimed, went back to the time of Mohammed AH, which 
would make it about 100 years old. He said he had been to Siwa 
and that they had the same palm there. The people in Siwa 
called it the Saidy. When I asked him if he was absolutely certain 
that the date called the Saidy by the people of Siwa was the same 
as the " Sewi." he declared that he was and expressed astonishment 
that there could be any doubt about it. 
Some time later at the esbet, or village, where a man told me that 
the first caravan with dates from Siwa had arrived and was en- 
camped some distance away, he showed me a handful of *he dates 
he had obtained from the caravan and insisted that they were " Sewi." 
though the dates were quite unmistakably what we know as the 
Saidy. 
When these Bedouins, who have known this caravan trade from 
boyhood, assume it as a matter of common knowledge that the dates 
of "the wahat (Saidy) and those of the Gizeh ("Sewi") are the 
same, I believe it leaves no reasonable doubt of their being one and 
the same variety. 
In December. 1921. further confirmation of this was secured at 
Kirdasa. a native village on the border of the desert, about 5 miles 
northwest from the Pyramids of Gizeh. Its territory lies above the 
last canal, but much of it is flooded when the irrigation basins are 
filled. The chief industry is date growing, and the Amhat, Sewi, 
and Hayany are its chief varieties. The omda of the village states 
that they have about 20.000 trees of the " Sewi " variety. The village 
is near the mouth of Wadi el Xatrun. through which the great caravan 
trail from Siwa Oasis and westward has passed for many centuries. 
It was from " Kardassi " that Frederick Horneman set out with a 
company of merchants of Aujila in September, 1798. becoming the 
second modern European explorer to reach Siwa. The father of 
the present omda had made the journey to Aujila. and the omda 
and his brother. 75 years old. have been familiar with this caravan 
traffic from boyhood, the great camping places of the caravans being 
near their home. They stated that while the caravans brought a few 
dates of what they regard as the choicer variety, the Ghrasali, the 
great volume of the export dates from the wahat, or oasis country, 
is of the Saidy variety, known to the merchants as the " Wahi," be- 
cause it is the date they obtain from the wahat. Both men asserted 
positively that the Saidy which the caravans brought from Siwa 
Oasis and the " Sewi " of their " belad " or country were the same. 
It was their opinion that the " Sewi " came originally from the 
wahat, probably from the "belad" of Siwa. They believed that 
the variety had been in their village as much as 150 'years, and they 
themselves had trees that they thought were more than 100 years 
old. The older man pointed out trees which he said were as tall as 
they now are when he was a boy. Though they were inclined to 
believe that the u Sewi " variety had come from seed instead of 
" shettla," as they had never heard of any " shettla " being brought 
