It
Would Appear That Tapping The Palm Was Known To The Ancients, For A
Cornelian _Intaglio_ Of Roman Antiquity, Has Been Found In The Jereed,
Representing A Tree In This State, And The Jars In Which The Juice Was
Placed.
Dates are likewise dried in the sun, and reduced into a kind of meal,
which will keep for any
Length of time, and which thus becomes a most
valuable resource for travellers crossing the deserts, who frequently
make it their only food, moistening a handful of it with a little water.
Certain preparations are made of the male plant, to which medicinal
virtues are attributed; the younger leaves, eaten with salt, vinegar,
and oil, make an excellent salad. The heart of the tree, which lies at
top between the fruit branches, and weighs from ten to twenty pounds, is
eaten only on grand occasions, as those already mentioned, and possesses
a delicious flavour between that of a banana and a pine-apple.
The palm, besides these valuable uses to which it is applied,
superseding or supplying the place of all other vegetables to the tribes
of the Jereed, is, nevertheless, still useful for a great variety of
other purposes. The most beautiful baskets, and a hundred other
nick-nackery of the wickery sort are made of its branches; ropes are
made and vestments wove from the long fibres, and its wood, also, when
hardened by age, is used for building. Indeed, we may say, it is the all
and everything of the Jereed, and, as it is said of the camel and the
desert, _the palm is made for the Jereed, and the Jereed is made for the
palm_.
The Mussulmen make out a complete case of piety and superstition in the
palm, and pretend that _they are made for the palm, and the palm is made
for them_, alleging that, as soon as the Turks conquered Constantinople,
the palm raised its graceful flowing head over the domes of the former
infidel city, whilst when the Moors evacuated Spain, the palm pined
away, and died. "God," adds the pious Mussulman, "has given us the palm;
amongst the Christians, it will not grow!" But the poetry of the palm is
an inseparable appendage in the North African landscape, and even town
scenery. The Moor and the Arab, whose minds are naturally imbued with
the great images of nature, so glowingly represented also in the sacred
leaves of the Koran, cannot imagine a mosque or the dome-roof of a
hermitage, without the dark leaf of the palm overshadowing it; but the
serenest, loveliest object on the face of the landscape is _the lonely
palm_, either thrown by chance on the brow of some savage hill or
planted by design to adorn some sacred spot of mother-earth.
I must still give some other information which I have omitted respecting
this extraordinary tree. And, after this, I further refer the reader to
a Tour in the Jereed of which some details are given in succeeding
pages. A palm-grove is really a beautiful object, and requires scarcely
less attention than a vineyard. The trees are generally planted in a
_quincunx_, or at times without any regular order; but at distances from
each other of four or five yards. The situation selected is mostly on
the banks of some stream or rivulet, running from the neighbouring
hills, and the more abundant the supply of water, the healthier the
plants and the finer the fruit. For this tree, which loves a warm
climate, and a sandy soil, is yet wonderfully improved by frequent
irrigation, and, singularly, the _quality_ of the water appears of
little consequence, being salt or sweet, or impregnated with nitre, as
in the Jereed.
Irrigation is performed in the spring, and through the whole summer. The
water is drawn by small channels from the stream to each individual
tree, around the stalk and root of which a little basin is made and
fenced round with clay, so that the water, when received, is detained
there until it soaks into the earth. (All irrigation is, indeed,
effected in this way.) As to the abundance of the plantations, the fruit
of one plantation alone producing fifteen hundred camels' loads of
dates, or four thousand five hundred quintals, three quintals to the
load, is not unfrequently sold for one thousand dollars. Besides the
Jereed, Tafilett, in Morocco, is a great date-country. Mr. Jackson says,
"We found the country covered with most magnificent plantations, and
extensive forests of the lofty date, exhibiting the most elegant and
picturesque appearance that nature on a plain surface can present to the
admiring eye. In these forests, there is no underwood, so that a
horseman may gallop through them without impediment."
Our readers will see, when they come to the Tour, that this description
of the palm-groves agrees entirely with that of Mr. Reade and Captain
Balfour. I have already mentioned that the palm is male and female, or,
as botanists say, _dioecious_; the Moors, however, pretend that the palm
in this respect is just like the human being. The _female_ palm alone
produces fruit and is cultivated, but the presence or vicinity of the
_male_ is required, and in many oriental countries there is a law that
those who own a palm-wood must have a certain number of _male_ plants in
proportion. In Barbary they seem to trust to chance, relying on the male
plants which grow wild in the Desert. They hang and shake them over the
female plants, usually in February or March. Koempfe says, that the male
flowers, if plucked when ripe, and cautiously dried, will even, in this
state, perform their office, though kept to the following year.
The Jereed is a very important portion of the Tunisian territory,
Government deriving a large revenue from its inhabitants. It is visited
every year by the "Bey of the Camp," who administers affairs in this
country as a sovereign; and who, indeed, is heir-apparent to the
Tunisian throne.
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