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If this was the case, our worthy progenitor made a long journey after he was driven out of Paradise, to reach Adam's Peak in Ceylon. We now entered the Tigris. For a distance of three miles further, we were gratified by the sight of beautiful forests of date-trees, which we had already enjoyed, almost without intermission, from the mouth of the Schatel-Arab; they now suddenly terminated.
While a New Yorker meeting a former New Yorker on the desert might have little to tell not already chronicled in the press, a Little Riversite meeting a former Little Riversite in New York had a family budget of news. How high were Jack's hedges? How were the Doge's date-trees? How was this and that person coming on?
The date-trees stand either in the enclosed fields, where they are irrigated together with the seeds in the ground, or in the open plain, where they are watered by the rains only: the fruit of the latter, though less abundant, is more esteemed. Numbers of them grow wild on the plain, but every tree has its owner.
A little beyond it lies the valley of Es-Ssafra, the market of the neighbouring tribes and celebrated for its plantations of dates. The traveller relates that "The groves of date-trees extend for nearly four miles, and belong to the natives of Ssafra as well as to the Bedouins of the neighbourhood, who employ labourers to water the ground, and come themselves to reap the harvest.
Nothing is visible from the river but some fortified works and large forests of date-trees, behind which the town is situated far inland. The journey from Bombay to this place had occupied eighteen days, in consequence of the unfavourable monsoon, and was one of the most unpleasant voyages which I ever made.
Scattered houses surrounded with date-trees seem to denote the comfort of their inhabitants. Ascending in the direction of Carapa, we enjoy once more the sight of the Silla, which appears like an immense dome with a cliff on the side next the sea.
At the end of two hours, we came to a public fountain in ruins, on the road, near a well half choked up. The valley here divides; one branch turns towards the N.W.; the other, which we followed, N.N.E. Two hours and a half, we passed a hamlet called Dar el Hamra, with gardens of date-trees, and plantations, inhabited by the tribe of Howaseb, another branch of Harb.
The principal source, which, under the name of Wad Nefta, takes its rise at the north of the city, in the midst of a movement of earth, enters the villages of Sherfa and Sidi Ahmed; divides them in two, and fecundates its gardens planted with orange-trees, pomegranates, and fig-trees. The same spring, by the means of ducts of earth, waters a forest of date-trees which extends some leagues.
Beautiful woods of date-trees indicated from afar the inhabited country, but intercepted our view of the town. Four miles from Hilla we turned off the road to the right, and shortly found ourselves between enormous mounds of fallen walls and heaps of bricks. The Arabs call these ruins Mujellibe.
"And there are no more passionate lovers of home than these tent-women, or more hospitable people." "Do these date-trees bear fruit?" Millicent asked the practical question irrelevantly. Her mind was charged with new interests, while her eyes looked at the soaring trees. The tent-dwellers interested her. She would like to have questioned them about all sorts of intimate subjects. "Rather!
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