the “food of vision,” as the Arabs call it, and “pure water to the parched throat.”  For hours I could have sat and looked at it.  The air was soft and balmy; a perfumed breeze, strange luxury in Al-Hijaz, wandered amongst the date fronds; there were fresh flowers and bright foliage; in fact, at Midsummer, every beautiful feature of Spring.  Nothing more delightful to the ear than the warbling of the small birds, that sweet familiar sound; the splashing of tiny cascades from the wells into the wooden troughs,

[p.400]and the musical song of the water-wheels.  Travellers-young travellers-in the East talk of the “dismal grating,” the “mournful monotony,” and the “melancholy creaking of these dismal machines.”  To the veteran wanderer their sound is delightful from association, reminding him of fields and water-courses, and hospitable villages, and plentiful crops.  The expatriated Nubian, for instance, listens to the water-wheel with as deep emotion as the Ranz des Vaches ever excited in the hearts of Switzer mercenary at Naples, or “Lochaber no more,” among a regiment of Highlanders in the West Indies.  The date-trees of Al-Madinah merit their celebrity.  Their stately columnar stems, here, seems higher than in other lands, and their lower fronds are allowed to tremble in the breeze without mutilation.[FN#3] These enormous palms were loaded with ripening fruits; and the clusters, carefully tied up, must often have weighed upwards of eighty pounds.  They hung down between the lower branches by a bright yellow stem, as thick as a man’s ankle.  Books enumerate a hundred and thirty-nine varieties of trees; of these between sixty and seventy are well known, and each is distinguished, as usual among Arabs, by its peculiar name.  The best kind is Al-Shelebi; it is packed in skins, or in flat round boxes covered with paper, somewhat in the manner of French prunes, and sent as presents to the remotest parts of the Moslem world.[FN#4] The fruit is about two inches long, with a small stone,

[p.401]and has a peculiar aromatic flavour and smell; it is seldom eaten by the citizens on account of the price, which varies from two to ten piastres the pound.  The tree, moreover, is rare, and is said to be not so productive as the other species.  The Ajwah[FN#5] date is eaten, but not sold, because a tradition of the Prophet declares, that whoso breaketh his fast every day with six or seven of these fruits, need fear neither poison nor magic.  The third kind, Al-Hilwah, also a large date, derives a name from its exceeding sweetness:  of this palm the Moslems relate that the Prophet planted a stone, which in a few minutes grew up and bore fruit.  Next comes Al-Birni, of which was said, “It causeth sickness to depart, and there is no sickness in it.”  The Wahshi on one occasion bent its head, and “salamed” to Mohammed as he ate its fruit, for which reason even now its lofty tuft turns earthwards.  The Sayhani (Crier) is so called, because when the founder