diversities of surface, and the vicinity of the sea, keep the air over the former places in continual play and motion, and prevent those intense heats which unquestionably (though by a process which chemistry has not yet fully investigated) render the juices of plants acid, acrid, or saline; while, from the wider extent of Andalusia, and its comparative distance from the ocean, the air over it is, in the warmer, months, much more quiescent.

These considerations will, to a certain extent, explain why there are so many varieties in a fruit, which, according to the authorities, appear all to have come from the same part of the world; and a further extension of these considerations would form a criterion of the situations in which it would, or it would not, be desirable to cultivate the orange.

CHAPTER VIII.

FRUITS COMMON TO TEMPERATE AND TROPICAL CLI MATES-CONTINUED. THE DATE.

THE DATE-Phoenix dactylifera.

THE date is one of those plants which, in the countries that are congenial to their growth, form the principal subsistence of man; and its locality is so peculiar that it cannot, strictly speaking, be classed either with the fruits of the temperate climates or with those of the tropical. It holds a certain intermediate place; and is most abundant in regions where there are few other esculent vegetables to be found.

There is one district where, in consequence of the extreme aridity of the soil, and the want of moisture in the air, none of the Cerealia will grow; that district is the margin of the mighty desert which

extends, with but few interruptions, from the shores of the Atlantic to the confines of Persia, an extent of nearly four thousand miles. The shores, the banks of the rivers, and every part of this region in which there is humidity, are exceedingly fertile; and with but unskilful culture produce the most abundant crops and the choicest fruits. But along the verge of the desert, and in the smaller oases or isles which here and there spot that wilderness of sand, the date-palm is the only vegetable upon which man can subsist. The lofty summits of the mountains of Atlas form an effectual barrier to the humid winds from the sea. Accordingly, the richer vegetation extends only as far to the south of them as the courses of the streams that are fed by the mountain snows; and these streams are soon evaporated by the air, or absorbed by the thirsty soil. The more lowly vegetables on that soil are chiefly of a saline and succulent description, such as euphorbias, salsolas, and cactuses, which retain their own humidity in consequence of their smooth and close rinds, without much aid from external moisture; but their juices are in general too acrid, or too much impregnated with soda, for being of any use as food. Over these, the date-palm raises its trunk and spreads its leaves, and is the sole vegetable monarch of the thirsty land. It is so abundant, and so unmixed with anything else that can be considered as a tree in the country between the states of Barbary and the desert, that this region is designated as the Land of Dates (Biledulgerid); and upon the last plain, as the desert is approached, the only objects that break the dull outline of the landscape are the date-palm and the tent of the Arab. The same tree accompanies the margin of the desert in all its sinuosities; in Tripoli, in Barca, along the valley of the Nile, in the north of Arabia, and in the south-east of Turkey.

This region of the date has perhaps remained for a longer period unchanged in its inhabitants and its productions than any other portion of the world. The Ishmaelites, as described in Scripture history, were but little different from the Bedouins of the present time; and the palm-tree (which in ancient history invariably means the date) was of the same use, and held in the same esteem, as it is now. When the sacred writers wished to describe the majesty and the beauty of rectitude, they appealed to the palm as the fittest emblem which they could select. He shall grow up and flourish like the palm-tree," is the promise which the Royal Poet of Israel makes for the just.

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Even among the followers of other faiths, the palm has always been the symbol held in the greatest veneration. It is recorded of Mahomet that, like the psalmist, he was accustomed to compare the virtuous and generous man to the date-tree: "He stands erect before his Lord; in every action he follows the impulse received from above; and his whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow-creatures." The inhabitants of Medina, who possess the most extensive plantations of date-trees, say that their prophet caused a tree at once to spring from the kernel at his command, and to stand before his admiring followers in mature fruitfulness and beauty*. The Tamanaquas of South America have a tradition that the human race sprung again from the fruits of the palm, after the Mexican age of water. The usefulness of the tree has thus caused it to be the subject of universal veneration. In ancient times, and in modern, the palm has been the symbol of triumph. The Jews carry it on a solemn festival in commemoration of their fathers having gained possession of the promised land†; and the Christians in remem

*Burckhardt's Arabia.

† Judæa was typified by the palm-tree upon coins of Vespasian and Titus.

brance of that more glorious victory, when the Saviour rode into Jerusalem amid the jubilations and hosannahs of the people.

And the tree is not unworthy of those honours which mankind have in all ages bestowed upon it. Indeed, the worthiness of the tree must have been the cause of those honours. Rearing its stem, and expanding its broad and beautiful shade where there is nothing else to shelter man from the burning rays of the sun, the palm-tree is hailed by the wanderer in the desert with more pleasure than he hails any other tree in any other situation. Nor is it for its shade alone, or even for its fruit, that the palm is so desirable in that country; for, wherever a little clump of palms contrast their bright green with the red wilderness around, the traveller may in general be sure that he shall find a fountain ready to afford him its cooling water.

Nor is it only when standing alone in the desert that the palm is a majestic tree. Palms form the shade and the beauty of many of the tropical forests. Some of them are among the tallest of trees; and when the margin of a river is spoken of as more than usually delightful, we allude to its "palmy side."

The Cucurito, a palm of South America, throws out its magnificent leaves over a trunk a hundred feet high. This family of plants diminish in grandeur and beauty as they advance towards the temperate zone; and Humboldt says that those who have only travelled in the north of Africa, in Sicily, and in Murcia, cannot conceive how the palms should be the most imposing in their forms of all the trees of the forest. The palms of South America furnish food in a variety of ways to the people; so that in those wild districts, the assertion of Linnæus forces itself upon the mind,—that the region of palms was the first country of the human race, and that man is essentially palmivorous.