DATE CULTURE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 25 
same suggestion. It is only recently that any more definite infor- 
mation has come to light. C. D. Belgrave (i, p. 95) gives the fol- 
lowing very significant narrative : 
According to the old history, which is preserved at Siwa, there was an- 
other small incursion from the east at a later date. Ahont the middle of the 
fifteenth century there was a great plague which carried off a number of 
Siwans. A certain devout man in Egypt dreamed that the ground at Siwa 
was very rich. He came to the oasis and settled there, planting a special 
kind of date palm which he brought from Upper Egypt; he also grew dates 
for the " Wakf " (religious foundation) of the Prophet, which custom still 
continues. Later, he made the pilgrimage and described the country of Siwa 
to the people of Mecca, who had never heard of it. They did him great 
honor. He returned to Siwa accompanied by 30 men, Berbers and Arabs, who 
settled in Siwan. They built an olive press in the center of the high town 
and inscribed their names thereon. From these men and their Siwan wives 
certain of the present inhabitants are descended, and some Siwans boast 
to-day that their forbears came with " the Thirty " whose names were inscribed 
on the old olive press. 
The elate men of both Egypt and the Sudan have always been 
prone to give local names to elate varieties, as, for example, calling 
the Saidy the Sewi when it was brought from Siwa Oasis to the 
Giza district opposite Cairo. Another example is found in the fact 
that offshoots of the Tunisian Deglet Noor were introduced into 
Dongola Province in the Sudan by Gov. H. W. Jackson about 1911. 
A number of survivals of this importation are now known among the 
natives as the Tunisian date, the name Deglet Noor having entirely 
disappeared. 
Nothing would be more natural than that the "special kind of 
date palm " which " a certain devout man " * * * " brought 
from Upper Egypt " should become known as the Saidi, or date 
from the Said. Caravan communication between the five oases of 
the Libian Desert was common from very remote times. It was but 
natural that the culture of this new date from the Said should spread 
to the whole group, as we find it at the present time. 
CONFIRMING THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SAIDY DATE INTO EGYPT FROM THE SIWA 
OASIS 
In Department Bulletin No. 271 (12) the close resemblance and 
probable identity of the Sewi date of Giza Province with the Saicly 
, of the five Libian oases were pretty well established and by repeated 
testimony placed beyond question in Department Bulletin No. 1125. 
It was also shown that the introduction of the Saidy into Egypt 
dated back a considerable time, in the opinion of older men of 
Kerdaseh, 100 or perhaps 150 years. 
Notes were obtained in the district adjacent to Cairo on the west, 
as Avell as in upper Giza, in 1921-22, which were not put in shape 
in time to appear in Department Bulletin No. 1125 (IS), but which 
throw important light on the age of the " Sewi " date culture in 
Giza Province. 
The " Sewi " territory may for convenience be divided into the dis- 
trict north of the boulevard leading to the Great Pyramids and that 
south of it. North of the pyramids a long narrow strip lying be- 
tween the drainage canal and the desert bluffs, with Kerdaseh as 
its official center, contains, according to the omda of that village, 
10344—27 4 
