TREES IN EGYPT.
Divisæ arboribus patriæ.—VIRGIL.
Vegetation is the garb of nature; and no description of any region can
pretend to completeness till the trees—the most conspicuous part of the
vegetation—have been brought into view. In Egypt as each specimen of the
few species of trees commonly met with (the species may be counted on the
fingers of one hand) must be carefully looked after to be kept alive,
every particular tree comes to be regarded as beautiful, and valuable.
The knowledge the traveller has of this care and regard, which have been
bestowed upon them, enhances the interest with which he beholds them.
Besides, the trees of Egypt are entitled to a place in any description
of the country, for the additional reason, that on its level plain they
are the most marked and pleasing objects on which the eye rests. A work,
therefore, that aims at giving anything like a picture of Egypt, must
bring out, with some little distinctive prominency, the characteristics
of each species.
Among the trees of Egypt, the first place is held by the palm. On landing
at Alexandria you find it around the city in abundance, and throughout
the country you are never long out of sight of it. It is seen to most
advantage from the river against the sky. It appears most in place when,
in sufficient numbers to form a grove, it overshadows some river-side
village. You there look upon it as the beneficent friend and coadjutor of
the poor villagers. You know that it gives them much they could not get
elsewhere, and which they could ill spare—shade, boxes, baskets, cordage,
thatch, timber, and the chief of their humble luxuries, in return for the
protection and water they have given to it. We often hear it spoken of as
the queen of the vegetable world. I had rather say that it is a form of
grace, and beauty, of which the eye never tires.
The tree usually employed in forming avenues, where shade is the first
object, is the broad-podded acacia. The distinguishing feature in this
is the largeness and abundance of its singularly dark green leaves. Its
foliage, indeed, is so dense, that no ray of sunlight can penetrate
through it. The effect is very striking. In one of these avenues, that
has been well kept, you will find yourself in a cool gloom, both the
coolness, and the gloom, being such that you cannot but feel them, while
you see the sun blazing outside. The road from Boulak to the Pyramids of
Gizeh is planted the whole way with these trees. For the first two or
three miles they are of some age, and, having now met overhead above the
road, the shelter, even at mid-day, is complete. For the rest of the way
the trees are not older than the Prince of Wales’s visit, they having
been planted along the sides of the road that was on that occasion made
to do him honour, in Eastern fashion. No tree more easily establishes
itself, or grows more rapidly, if sufficiently watered. All that is
required is to cut off a limb, no matter how large, or from how old a
tree, and to set it in the ground. If it be supplied with water it grows
without fail. This acacia is the lebekh of the natives.
Another tree used in avenues, and which grows to a greater height and
with larger limbs than the lebekh, is the Egyptian sycamore. It is a
species of the Indian fig. The largeness of its limbs enables you to see
the whole of its skeleton. The skeleton of the lebekh is concealed by the
multiplicity of its branches, and the density of its foliage. There is a
fine specimen of this sycamore in the first Nubian village, on the way
from Assouan to Philæ, and another equally good on the bank of the river
just opposite Philæ. Trees of this kind have more of the appearance of
age than others in Egypt. Their bark is of a whitish colour, and their
large branches are covered with little leafless spur-like twigs, of a
dingy black, on which are produced their round green fruit, about as
big as bantams’ eggs. These spur-like processes on the branches are, I
suppose, the homologues of the descending aërial roots of its congener,
the banyan-tree of India, of which latter also I saw one or two good
specimens in gardens in Egypt. It was from the imperishable wood of the
sycamore that the ancient Egyptians made their mummy cases. The fine
old avenue from Cairo to Shoobra, three miles in length, is composed of
generally good specimens of this tree, intermingled with the acacia,
lebekh, and here and there a few tamarisks.
The tree which approaches nearest to the ability to support itself in
Egypt, without man’s aid, is the tamarisk. It is a tree that drinks
very little, and takes a great deal of killing. You see it growing as
a stunted shrub in the nitre-encrusted depressions of the desert in
the neighbourhood of Ismailia, and elsewhere, where it can only very
occasionally be refreshed by a stray shower. Wherever it can get the
little moisture, with which it is satisfied, it becomes a graceful tree.
The thorny small-leaved acacia gives but little shade. It produces a
small yellow flower, which is a complete globe, and has a sweet scent. It
is in flower at Christmas. If this is the acanthus of Herodotus, its wood
must have been largely used when he was in Egypt for the construction of
the river boats, which were often of very great capacity.
The dôm palm is occasionally seen in Upper Egypt. The first I fell in
with was at Miniéh. That, I believe, is the most northerly point at
which it is found. Its peculiarity is that, when the stem has reached
a few feet above the ground, it bifurcates. It then has two stems and
two heads. When these two stems have grown out to the length of a few
feet they, too, each of them, bifurcate, following the example of the
parent stem. There are now four stems with heads. Another repetition of
the process gives eight, and so on. In fact, it is a branching palm,
and every branch is a complete palm-tree. The whole is a cluster of
palm-trees on one stock.
These are all the trees one notices in travelling through the country.
The list is soon run through, but I saw that an attempt was being made to
add to the list. In the neighbourhood of the Viceroy’s palaces I found
two species of Australian eucalyptus. They appeared to approve of the
soil and climate, and gave promise of soon becoming fine trees. They do
well at Nice, and will probably do better in Egypt.
Every one of the trees I have mentioned remains, in Egypt, in full
foliage throughout the winter.