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Even those whose knowledge of the customs of the Orient extends nofurther than a recollection of the contents of that time-honored storybook, the "Arabian Nights," are doubtless aware that, since timeimmemorial, the date has been the chief food staple of thedesert-dwellers of the East. The "handful of dates and gourd of water"form the typical meal and daily sustenance of millions of human beingsboth in Arabia and in North Africa, and to this meager dietethnologists have ascribed many of the peculiar characteristics of thepeople who live upon it. Buckle, who finds in the constant consumptionof rice among the Hindoos a reason for the inclination to theprodigious and grotesque, the depression of spirits, and the wearinessof life manifest in that nation, likewise considers that the morbidtemperament of the Arab is a sequence of vegetarianism. He points outthat rice contains an unusual amount of starch, namely, between 83 and85 per cent; and that dates possess precisely the same nutritioussubstances as rice does, with the single difference that the starch isalready converted into sugar. To live, therefore, on such food is notto satisfy hunger; and hunger, like all other cravings, even ifpartially satisfied, exercises control over the imagination. "Thisbiological fact," says Peschel, "was and still is the origin of therigid fastings prescribed by religions so widely different, which aremade use of by Shamans in every quarter of the world when they wish toenter into communication with invisible powers." Peschel and Buckle,however, are at variance as to the influence of the date diet asaffecting a race; and the former remarks that, "while no one will denythat the nature of the food reacts upon the mental powers of man, thetemperament evoked by different sorts is different;" yet "we are stillfar from having ascertained anything in regard to the permanenteffects of daily food, especially as the human stomach has, to a greatdegree, the power of accommodating itself to various food substances,so that with use even narcotics lose much of their effect." The sameauthor also adds that the date "trains up independent and warlikedesert tribes, which have not the most remote mental relationship tothe rice-eating Hindoos."
It remains for the reader to reconcile this disagreement of learneddoctors according to his own judgment. The evidence of those whosubsist on the date is certainly overwhelming in its favor. TheAssyrians, tradition says, asserted that it was such a great gift tothem that its worth could not be too extravagantly told; for they hadfound, for the leaves, the fruit, the juices, and the wood of thetree, three hundred and sixty different uses. The Mohammedans adoptthe date palm into their religion as an emblem of uprightness, and saythat it miraculously sprang into existence, fully grown, at thecommand of the Prophet. Palm branches still enter as symbols ofrejoicing into Christian religious ceremonies; and throughoutPalestine constant reference is found to the date and the palm in thenaming of towns. Bethany means "a house of dates." Ancient Palmyra wasa "city of palms," and the Hebrew female name Tamar is derived fromthe word in that language signifying palm. In Africa there is animmense tract of land between Barbary and the great desert namedBilidulgerid, "the land of dates," from the profusion of the treesthere growing.
In this country, the date as an article of food is classed with theprune, the fig, and the tamarind, to be used merely as a luxury. Wefind it coming to the markets at just about this time of year in thegreatest quantities, packed in baskets roughly made from dried palmleaves. The dates, gathered while ripe and soft, are forced into thesereceptacles until almost a pasty mass, often not over clean, isformed. Their natural sugar tends to preserve them; but after longkeeping they become dry and hard. This renders them unfit for use; butthey still find a sale to the itinerant vendors who, after steamingthem to render them soft (of course at the expense of the flavor),hawk them about the streets. Dates in the pasty condition are notrelished by those who live on them; nor, on the other hand, would weprobably fancy the dried, almost tasteless fruit which, strung on longstraws, is carried in bunches by the Arabs in their pouches.
The date palm (phœnix dactylifera) is the most important speciesof the dozen which make up its genus. Though slow in growth, itshoots up a magnificent stem, to the height sometimes of eighty feet,the summit of which is covered with a graceful crown of pinnatedleaves. The trunk is exceedingly rough and spiny; the flower spathes,which appear in the axils of the leaves, are woody, and containbranched spadices with many flowers; more than 11,000 have beencounted on a single male spadix. As the flowers are diœcious, it isnecessary to impregnate the female blossoms artificially in order toinsure a good crop; and to this end the male spadices are cut off whenthe pollen is ripe and carefully shaken over the female ones. At fromsix to ten years of age, the tree bears, and then remains fruitful forupward of 200 years. An excellent idea of the palm in full bearing maybe obtained from our illustration, which represents the mode ofgathering the dates, of which a single tree will often yield from oneto four hundredweight in a season. The fruit varies much in size andquality; and in the oases of the Sahara forty-six varieties have beennamed.
The utilizations of the date palm and its products are very numerous.The stem yields starch, and timber for houses, boats, fences, fuel,etc., as well as an inferior kind of sago. The leaves serve asparasols and umbrellas, and for material for roof covering, baskets,brushes, mats, and innumerable utensils. At their base is a fiber,which is spun into excellent rope. When the heart of the leaf is cut,a thick honey-like juice exudes, which, by fermentation, becomes wine(the "toddy" of India), or vinegar, and is also boiled down intosugar. The young shoots, when cooked, resemble asparagus; and thedates themselves are dried and ground into meal, from which bread isprepared.
Hence it happens that we owe far more to accident, to fire, rapine,volcanic outbursts, and the protecting care of desolation, for theknowledge we have of times long past, than to any intentional legaciesof art or learning left us by the men of those times. The lost andabandoned tools, weapons, and ornaments of the stone age are all thatwe have to tell us of the childhood of humanity. Had no fierydisasters ever overtaken the pile-dwellers of the Swiss lakes, weshould probably have never heard of such a people.
To the mud and ashes of Vesuvius, rather than to the historians of theRoman Empire, we owe the best of our knowledge of how Roman citieslooked and Roman citizens lived eighteen hundred years ago. In thefragments of a terra cotta library, buried in the ruins of a royalpalace, we find almost our only records of the arts and sciences ofancient Assyria. Under the ash heaps of a forgotten age, in Cyprus,Cesnola finds the only known vestiges of a primitive civilization,reaching far back into the domain of mythology. Thanks to thedestroyers of Troy and Mycen, and the protective care of temporaryoblivion, Schliemann is now able to verify tradition and lay before anastonished and delighted world numerous precious relics of heroic ageshitherto remembered only in song.
On the other hand, who can estimate the value of the knowledge lostbeyond hope of recovery, or the checks to human progress experienced,in the repeated wiping out, so to speak, of the higher races and thecivilizations they embodied? And who can say that similar disastersmay not come again and again to humanity?
Suppose a pestilence peculiarly fatal to the white race should fallupon the world to-day, crippling, perhaps exterminating, the nowdominant civilized nations; how long would the material elements ofour science and art or general culture remain with power to enlightenthe barbarous tribes that would inherit the earth? Human progress hasmore than once been set back for centuries by such natural orunnatural causes, leaving the sites of once splendid civilizations tobe overrun with barbaric hordes knowing nothing of the better timesthat went before.
Suppose, again, that, by one of those geologic changes so numerous inthe history of our unstable globe, the existing continents should sinka thousand feet. Every center of modern civilization would besubmerged. The great social and political organizations of humanitywould be broken up, and in the wreck of nations that would ensue verylittle of the glory and culture of the race could survive. The earthis dotted with vestiges of lost and forgotten empires. Can wereasonably assume, in the face of such facts, that the nations ofto-day are immortal?
The question is: Shall we continue to trust to chance, as all othercivilizations have, for the preservation of the conquests we have madeamong the forces and secrets of nature; or shall we do somethingpositive for posterity, and leave the ages to come some certain andabiding legacy of our treasures of art and learning?
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