DATE CULTUBE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 67 
note; all the other features must harmonize with it and are subor- 
dinated to it. It is a note wild, half barbaric, tropical, yet full of 
sweetness and mystery. 
Plate 12, B, shows one of the most beautiful promenades around 
Cairo. This walk is along the western bank of the Nile, between the 
Kasr Neil and Bulak bridges, and was formerly a part of the palace 
grounds of one of the khedives, but is now part ,of the public park 
system of the city. The trees are unequal in height and their tall 
columns are not perfectly vertical, but their inequalities balance one 
another, and the whole effect is one of impressive beauty. These 
trees are about 75 years old, and the beauty of their foliage is en- 
hanced by their heavy crops of fruit. The sale of this fruit, by the 
way, yields much toward the cost of the care of the tree ; and walks. 
Another of the landscape treasures of Cairo is shown in Plate 
14, A. Here a magnificient paved boulevard sweeps in majestic 
curves around the upper end of the " Gizera,'' or island. This drive 
commands views in turn across the Nile to the Cairo side, with its 
walled-in palace gardens and anchored pleasure boats; up the Nile 
to the dimly defined arches of the great Mohammed Ali bridge; and 
across the broad canal mouth to the Giza bank of the Nile with its 
other rows of garden-embowered palaces and villas, where feathery 
palm tops cut into the sky line. These views are not disclosed all at 
once, but are framed, as it were, between the bordering groups of 
palms, which give emphasis to the sweeping curves of the drive. 
In California the new highway system of the Coachella Valley 
alone comprises many broad curves and triangles where, after safety 
first is remembered and a clear view insured, bordering groups of 
palms planted this year would pay heavy dividends in the enhanced 
beauty of these valley highways in the years to come. There might 
even arise a " Landscape Art Association " with chapters in different 
counties, working in collaboration with the highway commission in 
beautifying the public roads. In the Coachella and Imperial Valleys 
of California and in the Colorado, Gila, and Salt River Valleys of 
Arizona the date palm would prove in the hands of such an organiza- 
tion one of the most effective plants that could be used. 
Plate 14, B, gives an idea of the beautifying effect of a few date 
palms. Here is seen a little village, or esbet, a few miles from Cairo. 
Its mud-brick houses, almost destitute of windows, are redeemed 
from utter ugliness only by the picturesque group of date palms of 
varying heights on the right and the single tall male palm at the 
left. Rising amid such surroundings the unsightly aspect of the 
buildings is forgotten in the grace and beauty of the setting. 
While the sight of such strange and weird plants of the America]? 
Desert as the giant cactus and the Joshua tree enhances the idea of 
desolation and offers only elusive hope to the exhausted and thirst- 
haunted traveler, the sight of a distant grove of date palms in the 
most remote desert suggests water, shade, and rest — perhaps food and 
hospitality. 
The transplanting of the date industry from North Africa and 
Mesopotamia to southern California and Arizona has brought here 
also undreamed-of and far-reaching landscape possibilities. The 
monotonous desert levels, broken only by the saltbush and mesquite, 
are being increasingly planted with gardens and groves of date 
