DATE CULTURE IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN 5 
Red Sea port is about 450 miles, it is believed that seedlings rather 
than offshoots constituted the foundation of Sukkot date culture 
and that careful selection of seedlings built up the quality which 
has given the region its reputation. 
In a recent visit to the date-growing Provinces of the Sudan. 
Berber, Dongola, and Haifa, considerable additional information 
was obtained pointing to the origin of the date varieties of the 
Sudan. In the district below the Fourth Cataract of the Nile, of 
which Xouri is the chief village, there are a few trees of an excellent 
soft or packing variety called Medina, which, it is said, originated 
many years ago from seed of packed dates brought from Medina 
by returning pilgrims. A small, soft variety called the Mishrigi is 
considerably planted in the Abu Hamecl district,- of the origin of 
which a similar account is given. On the other hand, there is a 
popular tradition in the lower Dongola and Haifa Provinces that 
the dates of Mahas and Sukkot, which formed the nucleus of Haifa 
date culture, sprang from seed brought by caravan across the Sahara 
Desert from Biskra. 
Here comes in a most instructive case of the survival and spread of 
the date variety best fitted to the conditions of the country. In a 
little more than a century since Burckhardt's journey the Barakawi 3 
has become the chief commercial date of Nubia and the Sudan, with a 
culture running into thousands of feddans. Physiologically fitted 
to conditions of intense heat, with the driest air known of any date- 
producing region, this tree is vigorous in growth and propagation. 
It produces abundantly dates that in that atmosphere are so bone 
dry and hard that the natives -say the weevils can not work on them. 
Packing and shipping are reduced to the simplest terms. For the 
Kordofan trade two goat's hair sacks holding 160 pounds each are 
balanced over the crude saddle across the camel's back, and the 
caravan is ready for the desert. A few pounds of these dates soaked 
in a jar of water, as the journey continues, provide a refreshing 
drink and a nourishing meal, with no need for fire or baking pow- 
der. A caravan of 300 camels carrying these dates packed in brown 
goat's hair bags to the back country of Kordofan was formerly no 
unusual sight. 
The Barakawi (" the blessing "), vigorous in growth and propaga- 
tion, an abundant producer of large bone-dry dates of excellent food 
value, is to-day planted on every available acre of the narrow Nile 
bottoms of Dongola Province, and the offshoots are in such demand 
that no export orders will be considered. 
From Sukkot at a very early day offshoots of Barakawi must have 
been brought down the river to Wadi Ibrim, Derr, and Korosko, the 
most southerly culture in Egypt proper, where they took the name of 
Sukkpti. As the surplus of these dates was sent down the river in 
the slow, heavy native trading boats they took also the name of 
Ibrimi (or Ibreemee) from the region, all of which — the modern 
shabby village Ibrim and the tillable stretch of Nile bottom called 
Wadi Ibrim — derive their names from the old stronghold on the 
hillside, Kasr Ibrim. In Cairo both names may be heard in the 
native bazaars. 
3 See varietal description, page 13. 
