The Arabs Are Very Fond Of It, And I Was Told That In
Years When The Shrub Produces Large Crops, They Make A Conserve Of The
Berries.
The Gharkad, which from the colour of its fruit is also called
by the Arabs Homra delights in a
Sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in
the height of summer when the ground is parched up, exciting an
agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry
produced in the driest soil and season.[Might not the berry of this
shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of Marah? The words
in Exodus, xv. 25, are: “And the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he
had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.” The Arabic
translation of this passage gives a different, and, perhaps, more
correct reading: “And the Lord guided him to a tree, of which he threw
something into the water, which then became sweet.” I do not remember,
to have seen any Gharkad in the neighbourhood of Howara, but Wady
Gharendel is full of this shrub. As these conjectures did not occur to
me when I was on the spot, I did not enquire of the Bedouins whether
they ever sweetened the water with the juice of the berries, which would
probably effect this change in the same manner as the juice of
pomegranate grains expressed into it.] The bottom of the valley of
Gharendel swarms with ticks, which are extremely distressing both to men
and beasts, and on this account the caravans usually encamp on the sides
of the hills which border the valley.
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