DATES OF EGYPT AND THE SUDAN. 21 
bullocks, which lift the water by means of an endless chain of earthen jars set on 
heavy ropes. (PI. IV, fig. 2.) Where the lands are the best and the culture the most 
intensive the sakiehs are often not more than 100 feet apart, and the moaning creak of 
a score of these along the river bank on a hot tropical night is one of the memories 
that will abide longest with the visitor to Dongola. 
Except in the newest plantations, there is little regularity in the setting of these 
date trees and the practice of allowing from three to seven or eight ‘‘daughter” trees, 
offshoots from the ‘‘mother” tree, to grow up around it, inclined at various angles 
from the perpendicular, gives to these Dongola date plantations a weird and tropical 
picturesqueness, which contrasts strongly with the straight-bodied, formal appearance 
of the groves seen about Merg or Bedrashen. 
Hither there is an appreciation of the fact that in this region of dry air and intense 
heat a greater insulation of the growing center is needed, or perhaps the temptation 
to remove leaf material to sell is not so great; at any rate, the tops of the Dongola date 
trees are left much heavier than in Lower Egypt, and the leaves are not cut so closely 
at the base. 
The Dongola people are apparently very well satisfied with their Barakawi industry 
and are offering no offshoots for sale, but are planting new groves as fast as they can 
get the material. 
The writer was informed that there is also a considerable production of this variety, 
under the name ‘“‘Ibrimi,’’ in Berber Province, which is the uppermost date-produc- 
ing region of the Nile Valley, including the fourth and fifth cataracts; for while there 
are many date trees about Khartum, the fruit is hardly produced in commercial 
quantities. 
In the reaches of the Nile Valley, between Wady Halfa and Korosko, there are 
narrow stretches of alluvial land and islands which, together, permit the cultivation 
of many thousands of date trees, of which this variety, under the name ‘‘Ibrimi,”’ is 
the chief. An important section of the valley is on some maps designated as Wady 
Ibrim, to which an ancient ruin known as the Kasr Ibrim doubtless gave the name, 
and which is now represented by a modern native village of the usual squalid type. 
The product of this section reaches the markets of Lower Egypt under the name 
‘‘Ibrimi” and leads to the inclusion of the Barakawi dates from Dongola under the 
same name. As there is a great variation in size and appearance among the dates 
marketed as ‘‘Ibrimi” in Cairo, there is good ground for the suspicion that the crop 
from a good many seedling trees bearing fruit closely resembling the original variety 
is marketed under that name. 
BENTAMODA. 
(Betamoda, Bartamoda.) 
Trees of the Bentamoda variety have moderately heavy trunks and gracefully 
curved leaves 9 to 12 feet long, with light, slender ribs and narrow bases. The spine 
area 1s very short, the slender needlelike spines being from 1 inch long below to 5 or 
6 inches long where they pass to the narrow, grassy ribbon pinnee. The normal pinnz 
range in length from 12 or 16 inches to 18 or rarely 21 inches at a little beyond the 
middle of the blade, holding 12 to 16 inches to near the apex, where they shorten 
abruptly to a range of 7 to 10 inches. 
The pinne are narrow throughout, seven-eighths of an inch to 1 Hneh broad, rarely 
exceeding 1} or 14 inches in the wider ones. Their texture is soft and grasslike, witha 
thickness of 0.011 to0.014 of aninch. The pulviniare light, in some cases slightly cau- 
date, but with no groups coalescent. At the base of the blade the pinne have a light 
Axel divergence and a strong divergence from the blade plane, forming a narrow, 
close valley, which opens out toward the middle of the blade, where the pinne are at 
about 27° to 30° from the blade plane, giving a rather smooth uniform leaf toward the 
apex. The general color is rather light green with a thin waxy bloom. 
