The date is also left upon the tree
to dry, and then called "Balah": this is eaten at dessert as the
"Nukliyat"-the quatre mendiants of Persia. Amongst peculiar
preparations must be mentioned the "Kulladat al-Sham[FN#8]" (necklace
of Sham). The unripe fruit is dipped in boiling water to preserve its
gamboge colour, strung upon a thick thread and hung out in the air to
dry. These strings are worn all over Al-Hijaz as necklaces by children,
who seldom fail to munch the ornament when not in fear of slappings;
and they are sent as presents to distant countries.
[p.403]January and February are the time for the masculation[FN#9] of
the palm. The "Nakhwali," as he is called, opens the female flower, and
having inserted the inverted male blossom, binds them together: this
operation is performed, as in Egypt, upon each cluster.[FN#10] The
fruit is ripe about the middle of May, and the gathering of it, forms
the Arabs' "vendemmia." The people make merry the more readily because
their favourite diet is liable to a variety of accidents: droughts
injure the tree, locusts destroy the produce, and the date crop, like
most productions which men are imprudent enough to adopt singly as the
staff of life, is often subject to complete failure.
One of the reasons for the excellence of Madinah dates is the quantity
of water they obtain: each garden or field has its well; and even in
the hottest weather the Persian wheel floods the soil every third day.
It has been observed that the date-tree can live in dry and barren
spots; but it loves the beds of streams and places where moisture is
procurable. The palms scattered over the other parts of the plain, and
depending solely upon rain water, produce less fruit, and that too of
an inferior quality.
Verdure is not usually wholesome in Arabia, yet invalids leave the
close atmosphere of Al-Madinah to seek health under the cool shades of
Kuba. The gardens are divided by what might almost be called lanes,
long narrow lines with tall reed fences on both sides. The graceful
branches of the Tamarisk, pearled with manna, and cottoned over with
dew, and the broad leaves of the castor plant, glistening in the sun,
protected us from the morning
[p.404]rays. The ground on both sides of the way was sunken, the earth
being disposed in heaps at the foot of the fences, an arrangement which
facilitates irrigation, by giving a fall to the water, and in some
cases affords a richer soil than the surface. This part of the Madinah
plain, however, being higher than the rest, is less subject to the
disease of salt and nitre. On the way here and there the earth crumbles
and looks dark under the dew of morning; but nowhere has it broken out
into that glittering efflorescence which denotes the last stage of the
attack.
