[778] At the present day this is not the fact. The village of La Bordighiera, situate on an eminence of the Apennines, grows great quantities of dates, of good quality. At Hieres, Nice, San Remo, and Genoa, they are also grown.
[779] This, too, is not the fact. The dates of Valencia, Seville, and other provinces of Spain, are sweet, and of excellent quality.
[780] Pliny is wrong again in this statement. The date of Barbary, Tunis, Algiers, and Bildulgerid, the “land of dates,” is superior in every respect to that of the East.
[781] The Æthiopians, as we learn from Theophrastus, B. ii. c. 8.
[782] Or in a wild state.
[783] “Tectorii vicem.” They were probably planted in rows, close to the wall.
[784] This mode of ascending the date-palm is still practised in the East.
[786] “Umbracula.” The fibres of the leaves were probably platted or woven, and the “umbracula” made in much the same manner as the straw and fibre hats of the present day.
[787] Most of this is borrowed from Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. ii. 9.