Meloukhye, Bamye, Portulaca egg-plants, or Badingans, cucumbers, and
very small turnips, of which the leaves are eaten, and the root is
thrown away as useless. Radishes and leeks are the only vegetables
regularly and daily used in Arab cookery; they are very small, and the
common people eat them raw with bread. In general, the Arabs consume
very few vegetables, their dishes being made of meat, rice, flour, and
butter. In these fruit-shops, tamarind (called here Homar) is also sold;
it comes from the East Indies, not in cakes, like that from the negro
countries, but in its natural form, though much decomposed. When boiled
in water, it constitutes a refreshing beverage, and is given to sick
people boiled with meat into a stew.

Eight date-sellers. Of all eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the
most favourite; and they have many traditions from their prophet,
showing the pre-eminence of dates above all other kinds of food. The
importation of dates is uninterrupted during the whole year. At the end
of June, the new fruit (called ruteb) comes in: this lasts for two
months, after which, for the remainder of the

[p.30] year, the date-paste, called adjoue, is sold. This is formed by
pressing the dates, when fully ripe, into large baskets so forcibly as
to reduce them to a hard solid paste or cake, each basket weighing
generally about two hundred weight; in this state the Bedouins export
the adjoue; in the market it is cut out of the basket and sold by the
pound. This adjoue forms a part of the daily food among all classes of
people. In travelling, it is dissolved in water, and thus affords a
sweet and refreshing drink. There are upwards of twelve different sorts
of adjoue; the best comes from Taraba, behind Tayf (now occupied by the
Wahabis.) The most common kind at present in the market is that from
Fatme; and the better sort, that from Kheleys, and Djedeyde, on the road