SAIDY DATE OF EGYPT. 6 
lean markets." The imports to America of this variety reach as high 
as twenty to thirty million pounds a year, and the dates sell at 
wholesale prices ranging from 5 to 7 cents a pound in normal times. 
At this price it is the cheapest dried fruit suitable for consumption 
without cooking or other preparation that reaches the American 
market in large quantities. It does not compare in quality with any 
of the other dates named, but it does compete with them advan- 
tageously in price. 
CHARACTER AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE LIBYAN OASES, THE 
HOME OF THE SAIDY DATE. 
These oases are irregular depressions in the great Libyan Plain, 
largely the result of wind erosion. Their only source of water at 
present is numerous artesian wells, though doubtless natural springs 
were found in prehistoric times. Many of these wells were bored 
during the Eoman occupation, about the beginning of the Christian 
era. According to Beadnell (2). the Dakhla Oasis has about 420 
ancient Roman wells still in active operation, though supplemented 
now by many modern ones. The source of this artesian supply is 
believed to be the rain belt of the African interior. ■ 
According to the same authority, the Dakhla Oasis had a total of 
nearly 200,000 date-palm trees in 1901, or about TJ trees for each 
inhabitant. The greater number of these palms are of the Saidy 
variety. The dates from these oases for ruany years have been 
brought over to the Nile Valley by the Bedouin traders, who sell them 
under the name "Wahi," which in Arabic means the date from "el 
wah," or the oasis. 
EARLY EGYPTIAN KNOWLEDGE OF THE DATE PALM. 
The history of the oases has been interwoven with that of Egypt 
from a most remote period. Evidence has been found not only of 
the predynastic occupation of Kharga, but it has been conclusively 
shown by Beadnell that this reached back into a stone age. We can 
not conceive of a population in these oases, distant a journey of only 
a few days from the Xile or from the Mediterranean coast, not being 
in more or less close touch with the Nile countries and governments. 
Apparently from a very early period the Egyptian governments 
sought to rule these oasis dwellers and to collect tribute from them. 
Sometimes under nominal subjection, they were by no means loyal, 
and repeated rebellions had to be put down. 
The oases were made places of banishment for political offenders. 
even of royal blood, and following the Christian era many noted men 
of the Coptic Church were banished to both Kharga and Siwa, so 
thai a Coptic community of many thousands existed at Kharga, and 
the ruins of the Christian necropolis vie in interest with the temples 
of the Egyptian deities. Kharga was from a very remote time an 
r - in the lowest commercial rank may be placed such dates as the Khadrawi and Sayer. 
also from the Mesopotamia!) region, which are not bought willingly by the importers of 
dates into America, but are merely included in bulk purchases of the entire output of an 
orchard. Considerable quantities of these varieties reach America and England, where 
they are sold at prices from 10 to 25 per cent below those paid for Ilalawi dates. Small 
quantities of the Amri date, a large but poorly flavored variety from Egypt, are shipped 
to Europe, but ihis date can not be said to play any important part in the markets of the 
world. 
