the
Date palm because a young shoot springs always from the withered
stump of an old decayed Date tree, taking the place of the
dead parent; and the specific term _Dactylifera_ refers to a fancied
resemblance between clusters of the fruit and the human fingers.

The Date palm is remarkably fond of water, and will not thrive
unless growing near it, so that the Arabs say: "In order to flourish,
its feet must be in the water, and its head in the fire (of a hot sun)."
Travellers across the desert, when seeing palm Dates in the
horizon, know that wells of water will be found near at hand: at
the same time they sustain themselves with Date jam.

In some parts of the East this Date palm is thought been the tree of
the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. It is mystically
represented as the tree of life in the sculptured foliage of early
French churches, and on the primitive mosaics found in the apses
of Roman Basilicas. Branches of this tree are carried about in
Catholic countries on Palm Sunday. Formerly Dates were sent to
England and elsewhere packed in mats from the Persian gulf; but
now they arrive in clean boxes, neatly laid, and free from duty; so
that a wholesome, sustaining, and palatable meal may be had for
one penny, if they are eaten with bread.

The Egyptian Dates are superior, being succulent and luscious
when new, but apt to become somewhat hard after Christmas.

The Dates, however, which surpass all others in their general
excellence, are grown with great care at Tafilat, two or three
hundred miles inland from Morocco, a region to which Europeans
seldom penetrate.

These Dates travel in small packages by camel, rail, and steamer,
being of the best quality, and highly valued. Their exportation is
prohibited by the African [154] authorities at Tafilat, unless the
fruit crop has been large enough to allow thereof after gathering
the harvest with much religious ceremony.

Dates of a second quality are brought from Tunis, being intermixed
with fragments of stalk and branch; whilst the inferior sorts
come in the form of a cake, or paste (_adjoue!_), being pressed
into baskets. In this shape they were tolerably common with us
in Tudor times, and were then used for medicinal purposes. Strutt
mentions a grocer's bill delivered in 1581, in which occurs
the item of six pounds of dates supplied at a funeral for
two shillings; and we read that in 1821 the best kind of dates
cost five shillings a pound.

If taken