To the Oriental plane we must add the date-palm: not indeed as strange now to the Italian eye, nor as very abundant in classical times; but as certainly more abundant then than now; an exception to the general law which we have indicated of the increasing prevalence of Southern forms of vegetation. The date-palm in Italy is, after all, but an occasional exotic. Mayer, the painstaking German author of a book on ‘Naples and the Neapolitans,’ says there are scarcely a dozen or two of them in the gardens of that city and its suburbs. There are eight or ten only in Rome, says M. Ampère. It does not ripen its fruit. It dwells uncomfortably, in the uncongenial neighbourhood of the pine; for in America and other unsophisticated regions, the natural limit of the palm ends where that of the pine begins. Picturesque as its solitary form often is, in the villa garden, or behind the convent wall, we cannot look at it without thinking of some poor captive Saracen maiden, shivering at the door of a Northern crusading baron. Even on the coast of the Riviera, where it appears to thrive the most, it affords a melancholy sight when writhing under the icy Mistral, which ever and anon turns the flank of the precarious barrier of the Maritime Alps, and whirls its blasts of snow-dust against the broad leaves. It appears in many of the Pompeian frescoes. Schouw suggests that this does not prove it a native, as the scenes represented may be foreign or symbolical. But the caution is unnecessary. The date-palm was certainly common of yore in maritime Italy, though no doubt in single specimens.[7] “Vulgo in Italiâ, sed steriles,” says Pliny: who accurately distinguishes it from the dwarf-palm or chamærops, then, as now, more characteristic of Sicily. We have already noticed the use for which Virgil recommends it in the ‘Georgics.’ Varro, ‘De Re Rusticâ,’ is still more to the point, when he classes the fibres of the palm along with flax, hemp, and reeds, among materials grown on the farm, which may be turned to account for making cordage. “Thus we perceive,” concludes our naturalist, “that the vegetable world, and in particular the list of cultivated vegetables, has undergone many changes since the age when Pompeii flourished; and that, while the ancient Pompeians enjoyed a great superiority over the moderns in respect of many enjoyments of life, particularly those arising from the arts, they lacked nevertheless some very valuable plants which increased geographical knowledge and extended commerce have procured for their descendants.”