difficult, and certainly the least attended to. One principal source of the difficulty lies in the observer being as much changed as the thing observed. Those who are parched with thirst do not stop to analyze the water, or descant upon the flavour of whatever beverage they may have recourse to for slaking it. The removal of the painful sensation is to them far more delicious than the purity of the most limpid spring, or the flavour of the choicest wine. Just so with man when he is panting under a burning atmosphere: the fruit which is most delicious to him is that which is most cool. This necessary change in the judge, as well as the thing judged of, must never be omitted when we come to compare the fruits of different countries as reported of by those who have enjoyed them there; and we never can be certain of their real merits till we have them decided by the same individual under the same circumstances. To take a case in point: a guava, apart from its rarity, is certainly not in this country any thing comparable to a peach; and yet those who have been in tropical countries talk in raptures of the guava, and say that the fruit grown here is inferior and degenerated. But they should bear in mind, that in the tropical countries there is the tropical zest, as well as the tropical flavour. The man who traverses a mountain country in the north, heeds not the glittering fountains that issue from every rock around him; but send him from Suez to Bassora, or from Morocco to Fezzan, and he would remember them with veneration.

But, again, we have a further confirmation when we compare the continental oranges. The climate of the slopes and valleys of the Estrella, near the lower Tagus, and that of the Maritime Alps, and the Apennines, in Provence and Liguria, are certainly very different from the climate of Andalusia. The

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 CLIMATES 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 any thing 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.