The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1890-12-06
ARABIAN PALM GROVES.


The Date Tree Il Every Thing to the
Dwclicr In the Desert.
For miles we passed through palm
groves, watered by their little artificial
conduits and producing the staple food
Of the island. Saed Ben Omar talked
to us much about the date. "Mohamrned
said," he began, ''Honor the date tree,
for she is your mother"--a true enough
maxim in parched Arabia, whore moth
ing else will grow When ripe the
dates are put into round tank called
the mddibdsh, where they are exposed
to the sun and air, and throw of excess
sive juice, which collects below. After
three days OF this treatment they are
removed and packed for expectation in
baskets of palm leaves. The Bahreinee,
for their own consumption, love to add
sesame seeds to their dates, or ginger
powder and walnuts pressed with them
into jars These are called seerdh, and
are originally prepared by being dried in
the sun and protected at night, then di-
luted date juice is poured over them. The
fruit which does not reach maturity is
called saiang, and is given as food to
cattle, boiled with date stones and fish
bones. This makes an excellent sort OF
cake for milch COWS, and the green
dates, too, are given to the donkeys, to
which the Bahreinee attribute their
great superiority. The very poor also
make an exceedingly unpalatable dish
out of green dates mixed with fish for
their own table, or, should say, floor.
Nature here is not strong enough for
H. a. - 4IA al, ~
given seasons the pollen is removed by
cutting off the male spathes when ready;
these they dry for twenty honrs, and
then they take the flower twigs and de-
posit one or two in each bunch of the
female blossom. Just as we were there
they were very busy with the spathes,
and in Thursdays market huge baskets
of the male spathes were exposed for
sale. The palm groves are surrounded
by dikes to keep the water in, and the
fins of species of rayfish, after being
put in tanks to decompose, is the most
approved form of manure.
The date tree is every thing to q
Bahreinee. He beats the green spadix
with wooden implements to make fiber
for his ropes; in the dry state ho uses it
as fuel; he makes his mats, the only
known form of carpet and bedding here,
out of it; his baskets are made of the
leaves; from the fresh spathe, by distil-
lation, certain stuff called Tara water
is obtained, of strong but agreeable
smell, which is much used for making
sherbet of. Much legendary lore is
connected with the date. The small
round ho1e at thr hack ia said to have
been made by Mohammed's teeth, when
one day he foolishly tried to bite one,
and in some places the expression sat
the same time date and duty" is ex-
planned by the fact that in Ramazan
the days fast is usually broken by first
eating date.
Among all these date groves are the
curious Arab wells, with sloping runs,
and worked by donkeys; the tall poles
to which the skins are attached are
date-tree trunks; down goes the skin as
the donkey comes up to its run, and
then up it comes again full of water as
the donkey descends, to be guided by a
slave into the water channel which fer
tilizes the trees. Day after day in our
camp we heard the weird creaking of
these wells, very early in the morning
and in the evening, when the sun had
gone down. and we felt when we heard
them what an infinite blessing is we'll
of water in thirsty land.-Cornhill
MapaZine