The blessings of the date-palm are without limit to
the Arab. Its leaves give a refreshing shade in a region where the beams
of the sun are almost insupportable; men, and also camels, feed upon the
fruit; the wood of the tree is used for fuel and for building the native
huts; and ropes, mats, baskets, beds, and all kinds of articles, are
manufactured from the fibres of the leaves. The Arab cannot imagine how
a nation can exist without date-palms, and he may well regard it as the
greatest injury that he can inflict upon his enemy to cut down
his trees."
"Miss Harson," asked Edith, very earnestly, "isn't the palm tree in the
Bible?"
[Illustration: DATE-PALM AT JERICHO.]
"It certainly is, dear," replied her governess, "and it is one of the
trees most frequently mentioned. In Deuteronomy, thirty-fourth chapter,
third verse, Jericho is called the 'city of palm trees.' Travelers still
speak of these trees as yet growing in Palestine, but they are not
nearly so abundant as they once were; near Jericho only one or two can
be found. There are many allusions to the palm in the Scriptures. King
David, in the ninety-second psalm, says that the righteous shall
flourish like the palm tree: 'Those that be planted in the house of the
Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bring forth
fruit in old age.' The palm is always upright, in spite of rain or wind.
'There it stands, looking calmly down upon the world below, and
patiently yielding its large clusters of golden fruit from generation to
generation.
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