"No," replied his governess; "the name comes from the sweetness of the pulp around the seeds, which ripen in large flat pods, and of which boys and girls are fond. But the flowers of this species are only small greenish aments. Locust-wood is very durable, and, as it will bear exposure to all kinds of weather, it is much used in shipbuilding and as posts for gates. It is thought that the shittah and shittim wood of the Bible, of which Moses made the greater part of the tables, altars and planks of the tabernacle, was the same as the black acacia found in the deserts of Arabia and about Mount Sinai and the mountains which border on the Red Sea, and is so hard and solid as to be almost incorruptible.