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fountain which springs at its foot; and, in his eagerness 
to obtain the life-dispensing draught, he hurries on, 
forgetful alike of difficulties and fatigue: and seldom 
or never is he disappointed; for “ though it often 
grows in apparently dry and sterile soil, a subterraneous 
supply of water may be always calculated upon: ” con¬ 
firmatory of which fact is the assertion of Sir Sidney 
Smith, who, when in Egypt, informed the British 
officers that they might always find water by digging to 
the roots of a palm tree. Other travellers also make the 
same statement. 
The palm is a tree of slow growth; and, “ even in the 
soil and clime most congenial, old trees do not gain 
above a foot in height in five years; so that, supposing 
the increase uniform, the age of a tree sixty feet high 
cannot be less than three hundred years.” Though 
there are fine forests of the date-palm in the more 
luxuriant parts of the province of Valentia, and though 
it grows abundantly in some other places in the South 
of Europe, yet it diminishes both in size and beauty as 
it approaches the temperate zones; and it is only in its 
own proper climate, which has a mean annual temper¬ 
ature of from 75° to 83° of Fahrenheit, that it perfects 
its fruit. South America, it is said, contains the finest 
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