266 
DATE TREE. 
famine may afflict their proprietors; and this is even 
done by the inhabitants themselves when they dread 
an invasion, that they may cut off this resource from 
their enemies, and thus deprive them of their chief 
sustenance. 
When the Arabs prepare the dates for food, they 
dry and harden them in the sun till they admit of 
being reduced into a powder, or kind of meal, 
which they carry with them into the desert; and 
which serves to nourish them while they are cross- 
ing those extensive and barren tracts. A kind of 
honey is also procured from them in some parts of 
the country ; and this is effected by choosing the 
ripest and most juicy of the dates, which are put 
into a large jar with a hole in the bottom, and 
squeezed by placing a weight of several pounds 
over them. In this manner a honey or syrup is 
drawn from the fruit which drops through the hole, 
and is much esteemed by the rich inhabitants, who 
mostly leave the dried dates for the poorer sort. 
The date, in some shape or other, enters into the 
composition of most of their dishes, and proves a 
great blessing to a country where other food is by 
no means plentiful. 
But it is not the fruit alone which renders the 
date so precious among the inhabitants of the East ; 
since there is scarcely any part of the tree which 
is not useful. The wood, though of a spongy tex- 
ture, lasts such a number of years, that the in- 
habitants of the country say it is incorruptible. 
They use it in constructing their houses, as well 
