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Updated: June 20, 2025
They are the summer residence of many families of the town, who make it a custom to pass there a couple of months in the hottest season. Few of the date-groves, unless those dispersed over the fields, are at all enclosed; and most of them are irrigated only by the torrents and winter rains.
The sails of their rare ships might be seen in the Egyptian waters; the camels of their caravans might thread the sands of Baalbec, or wind through the date-groves of Damascus; their flag was raised, not ingloriously, in many wars, against mighty odds; but 'twas a small people, and on one dark night the Lion of Judah went down before Vespasian's Eagles, and in flame, and death, and struggle, Jerusalem agonized and died. . . . Yes, the Jewish city is lost to Jewish men; but have they not taken the world in exchange?"
The Arabs will tell you that these springs come straight from the Euphrates, by an underground channel through which the great river flows beneath the Persian Gulf, doubtless being the same legend alluded to by Pliny when he says, 'Flumen per quod Euphratem emergere putant. There are many of them the Garsari well, Um-i-Shaun, Abu Zeidan, and the Adari, which last supplies many miles of date-groves through a canal of ancient workmanship.
After nine hours and a half we passed a village called El Waset, built among the date-groves, and having extensive gardens of fruit-trees in its vicinity. At every step water is found in wells or fountains. A little beyond this village we left the valley to the right, and took our way up a steep mountain, this being a nearer road than that through the valley.
They consist principally of date-groves and wheat and barley fields; the latter usually enclosed with mud walls, and containing small habitations for the cultivators. Their houses in the immediate neighbourhood of the town are well built, often with a vestibule supported by columns, and a vaulted sitting-room adjoining, and a tank cased with stone in front of them.
To manure their date-groves they use the fins of a species of ray fish called awwal, steeped in water till they are putrid; awwal, by the way, was an ancient name of the Island of Bahrein, perhaps because it was the first island of the group in size, awwal in Arabic meaning first.
They are said to be descendants of the partisans of Yezid, the son of Mawya, who took and sacked the town sixty years after the Hedjra. They marry only among themselves; and exhibit on all occasions a great esprit de corps. Many of them publicly profess the creed of Aly when in their date-groves, but are Sunnys whenever they come to town.
It is just beyond the town-walls, near the gate of Bab Djoma, and bears the name of El Bekya. A square of several hundred paces is enclosed by a wall which, on the southern side, joins the suburb, and on the others is surrounded with date-groves.
When the Arabian conquerors settled themselves in the lower country, they were so charmed with the luxuriant vegetation and the abundant date-groves, that they compared the region with the country about Damascus and reckoned it among their four earthly paradises. The propagation of the date-palm was chiefly from seed.
Behind, the steep valley is filled, and forms a huge lake extending eighty miles to the south, and many pretty villages have been submerged, while of the date-groves which surrounded them the crests of the higher trees alone appear above water. The green island of Philæ also is engulfed, and of the beautiful temple of Isis built upon it only the upper portion is visible.
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