14 BULLETIN 1457, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
qualities as well as their excellence as food making them very desirable for 
such a long journey. One of the prominent sheiks told the writer that these 
dates are sold in Egypt under the name Ibrimi. 
The region of the chief production of this date is the great bend of the Nile, 
a stretch of about 200 miles lying between the Third and Fourth Cataracts. 
For the greater part the bottoms are very narrow, scarcely more than garden 
patches, and often the rugged sandstone bluifs, crowned with the ruins of an- 
cient Roman fortresses or the more recent native retreats in time of river 
raids, rise abruptly from the river bank. There are no irrigation canals in the 
entire Province, and with the exception of some small flood areas and the 
infiltration received by trees near the river banks, the date trees are all irri- 
gated by means of rude geared wheels of acacia wood (sakieh) turned by 
bullocks, which lift the water by means of an endless chain of earthern jars 
set on heavy ropes. Where the lands are the best and the culture the most 
intensive, the sakiehs are often not more than 100 feet apart, and the moan- 
ing 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 El Marg or 
Bedrashen. 
Either 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 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-producing region of the Nile Valley, including the Fourth and Fifth 
Cataracts ; for while there are many date trees about Khartum, the fruit is 
produced hardly in commercial quantities. 
In the reaches of the Nile Valley between Wadi Haifa and Korosko tliere 
are narrow stretches of alluvial land and islands which, together, permit the 
cultivation of inany 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 Wadi Ibrim, to which an ancient ruin known as the Kasr 
Ibrim doubtless gave the name. This 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 of " Ibrimi," and often 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. This suspicion was confirmed by the testimony 
of several prominent growers in Dongola Province. 
MARKETING BARAKAWI DATES 
An average of about 4,000 tons of dry dates are shipped annually 
from the Sudan to Egypt through the port of Haifa. Most of these 
are of the Barakawi A^ariety, but they are so frequently mixed with 
"gaowa" (seedling) dates resembling it that the Sudan office of 
commercial intelligence makes use of the term " Barakawi quality '* 
in its market quotations. The greater volume of the BarakaAvi dates 
goes to the great native town of Omdurman, at the junction of the 
Blue Nile with the White Nile. The number of trees of this variety 
in the Sudan is estimated at about 500,000 (14, f* 57). 
