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Updated: May 6, 2025
"That was well done, jemadar." His lustrous eyes flash with pleasure. "And how is it with your food?" "The exalted Government has done great things. We have ghee" a clarified butter made of buffalo or cow's milk "and goor" unrefined sugar. "And we have spices for our dhal ginger and garlic and chilli and turmeric. Yea, and fruits also apricots, date-palms, and sultanas. What more can man want?"
This is a sandy valley, with herbage for the camels; the water, not very good, is a few feet from the surface, and issues from some rocks. There are no date-palms about the well, as reported, but a few stunted ones are found a mile or two higher up. The surface of the desert is broken into small mounds, crowned with the ethel-tree.
Fig-trees and date-palms, covered with fruit, stood sprinkled over the fields; and the woods and meadows were carpeted with brightly-colored and sweetly-scented flowers. The road led over ravines and brooks, now half dried up by the heat of summer, and here and there the traveller came upon a well at the side of the road, carefully enclosed, with seats for the weary, and sheltering shrubs.
I spent some pleasant mornings wandering about it with the mayor, Jameel Bey, a fine-looking Kurdish chieftain of the Jaf tribe. He owned a lovely garden with date-palms, oranges, pomegranates, and figs. Tattered Kurds were working on the irrigation ditches, and a heap of rags lying below the wall in the sun changed itself into a small boy, just as I was about to step on it.
They heard nothing of their servants, and consoled themselves that they had perhaps found some place of shelter or rest. They commenced their journey early, and in a short time the hills of Wadey Shiati were seen stretching east and west, and the date-palms in several groves; but some high sand-hills were seen between them.
Near by, a little to the left of the Zaouïa hill, such an oasis lay, and the woman on the white roof could look across a short stretch of sand, down into its green depths. She could watch the marabout's men repairing the sloping sand-walls with palm trunks, which kept them from caving in, and saved the precious date-palms from being engulfed in a yellow tide.
Few cities in the East present a more striking aspect from without. Over the battlements of the walls rise the slender minarets and shining domes of the mosques, the pavilions and the towers of the gates, the balustraded roofs of the higher and finer houses, the light foliage of acacias, and the dark crests of tall date-palms. It is a new city, only two hundred and twenty-six years old.
And nothing more foolish is recorded of the Schildburgers than Somadeva relates, in his Kathá Sarit Ságara, of the simpletons who cut down the palm-trees: Being required to furnish the king with a certain quantity of dates, and perceiving that it was very easy to gather the dates of a palm which had fallen down of itself, they set to work and cut down all the date-palms in their village, and having gathered from them their whole crop of dates, they raised them up and planted them again, thinking they would grow.
Not very cold, clouds thick and dark, and no sun. The music of the wind in the date-palms is very agreeable, and tunes my soul to a quiet sadness. The Ghadamsee merchant who was overtaken on his road to Tourat, refuses to come back, and says he trusts in God against the Shânbah. Some Souf Arabs have come in to-day, giving out that the French wish to assume the sovereignty over their country.
The scenery resembles that of yesterday; but there is not so much herbage, and the palms are absent. Probably the date-palms of Berket are the last trees of this species which we shall see until our return. The olive-district has long ago been left behind; and now the columnar date-palm is also to be among the things that were. They report, however, that there is a diminutive species in Aheer.
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