CHAPTER VIII.

El-Jereed, the Country of Dates.--Its hard soil.--Salt Lake. Its vast
extent.--Beautiful Palm-trees.--The Dates, a staple article of Food.--
Some Account of the Date-Palm.--Made of Culture.--Delicious Beverage.--
Tapping the Palm.--Meal formed from the Dates.--Baskets made of the
Branches of the Tree.--Poetry of the Palm.--Its Irrigation.--
Palm-Groves.--Collection of Tribute by the "Bey of the Camp."


El-Jereed, or Belad-el-Jereed, the country of dates, or literally, the
country of the palm branches, is a part of the Sahara, or the hot dry
country lying in the immediate vicinity of the Great Desert. Its
principal features of soil and climate offer nothing different from
other portions of the Sahara, or the Saharan regions of Algeria and
Morocco. The Belad-el-Jereed, therefore, may be properly called the
Tunisian Sahara. Shaw observes generally of Jereed:--"This part of the
country, and indeed the whole tract of land which lies between the
Atlantic and Egypt, is by most of the modern geographers, called
Biledulgerid, a name which they seem to have borrowed from
Bloid-el-Jeridde, of the Arabians, who merely signify the dry country;
though, if we except the Jeridde, a small portion of it which is situate
on this side of Lesser Syrtis, and belongs to the Tunisians, all the
rest of it is known by no other general name than the Sahara or Sahra,
among those Arabs, at least, whom I have conversed with."

Besides the grand natural feature of innumerable lofty and branching
palms, whose dark depending slender leaves, are depicted by the Arabian
poet as hanging gracefully like the dishevelled ringlets of a beautiful