Among The Date-Trees Are Small Huts Where Reside The Tebna
Arabs, A Branch Of The Djebalye, Who Serve As Gardeners To The Towara
Bedouins, Especially To The Szowaleha, Who Are The Owners Of The Ground;
They Take One-Third Of The Fruit For Their Labour.
The owners seldom
visit the place, except in the date harvest, when the valley is filled
with people for a month or six weeks; at that season they erect huts of
palm-branches, and pass their time in conviviality, receiving visits,
and treating their guests with dates.
The best species of these is
called Djamya [Arabic], of which the monks send large boxes annually to
Constantinople as presents, after having taken out the stone of the
date, and put an almond in its place. The
[p.603] Nebek (Rhamnus Lotus), the fruit of which is a favourite food of
the Bedouins, grows also in considerable quantity at Wady Feiran. They
grind the dried fruit together with the stone, and preserve the meal,
called by them Bsyse [Arabic], in leathern skins, in the same manner as
the Nubian Bedouins do. It is an excellent provision for journeying in
the desert, for it requires only the addition of butter-milk to make a
most nourishing, agreeable, and refreshing diet.
The Tebna cultivators are very poor; they possess little or no landed
property, and are continually annoyed by visits from the Bedouins, whom
they are under the necessity of receiving with hospitality. Their only
profitable branch of culture is tobacco, of which they raise
considerable quantities; it is of the same species as that grown in the
mountains of Arabia Petraea, about Wady Mousa and Kerek, which retains
its green colour even when dry.
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