El-Jereed, the Country of Dates.

" El-Jereed, or Belad-el-Jereed, the country of dates, or literally, the country of the palm branches, is a part of the Sahara, or the hot dry country lying in the immediate vicinity of the Great Desert.

" El-Jereed, or Belad-el-Jereed, the country of dates, or literally, the country of the palm branches, is a part of the Sahara, or the hot dry country lying in the immediate vicinity of the Great Desert.

The Jereed, from the existence in it of a few antiquities, such as pieces of granite and marble, and occasionally a name or a classic inscription, is proved to have been in the possession of the Romans, and undoubtedly of the Carthaginians before them, who could have had no difficulty in holding this flat and exposed country.

But in Jereed itself, twenty thousand people live six months of the year entirely on dates.

It would appear that tapping the palm was known to the ancients, for a cornelian intaglio of Roman antiquity, has been found in the Jereed, representing a tree in this state, and the jars in which the juice was placed.

The palm, besides these valuable uses to which it is applied, superseding or supplying the place of all other vegetables to the tribes of the Jereed, is, nevertheless, still useful for a great variety of other purposes.

Indeed, we may say, it is the all and everything of the Jereed, and, as it is said of the camel and the desert, the palm is made for the Jereed, and the Jereed is made for the palm.

Indeed, we may say, it is the all and everything of the Jereed, and, as it is said of the camel and the desert, the palm is made for the Jereed, and the Jereed is made for the palm.

For this tree, which loves a warm climate, and a sandy soil, is yet wonderfully improved by frequent irrigation, and, singularly, the quality of the water appears of little consequence, being salt or sweet, or impregnated with nitre, as in the Jereed.

The Jereed is a very important portion of the Tunisian territory, Government deriving a large revenue from its inhabitants.

I now introduce to the reader the narrative of a Tour to the Jereed, extracted from the notebooks of the tourists, together with various observations of my own interspersed, and some additional account of Toser, Nefta, and Ghafsa.

Tour in the Jereed of Captain Balfour and Mr. Reade.

The morning before starting from Tunis they went to the Bardo to pay their respects to Sidi Mohammed, "Bey of the Camp," and to thank him for his condescending kindness in taking them with him to the Jereed.

This may have been to avoid exciting the prejudices of the people; however, the smallness of the force shows that the districts of the Jereed are well-affected.

Our tourists saw no lions en route, or in the Jereed; the lion does not like the sandy and open country of the plain.

Of the like quality are the other waters of the Jereed, all of them, after they become cold, being the common drink of the inhabitants."

Here was the village of Dra-el-Hammah, surrounded, like all the towns of the Jereed, with date-groves and gardens.

Leaving Dra-el-Hammah, after a hot march of five or six miles, we arrived at the top of a rising ground, at the base of which was situate the famous Toser, the head-quarters of the camp in the Jereed, and as far as it goes.

The description corresponds also with that of Dr. Shaw, who says that "the villages of the Jereed are built of mud-walls and rafters of palm-trees."

The Arabs of Toser, on the contrary, and which very natural, protested to the French scientific commission that Toser was the finest city in El-Jereed.

The Bey administers justice, morning and evening, whilst in the Jereed.

There are little birds that frequent the houses, that might be called Jereed sparrows, and which the Arabs name boo-habeeba, or "friend of my father;" but their dress and language are very different, having reddish breasts, being of a small size, and singing prettily.

He says that all attempts to preserve them alive out of the districts of the Jereed have failed.

The Arabian horse will not plough well, nor can the plough-horse be rode to play the jereed.