stituted by the natives for mustard. In fact, we find that it was a common practice among the ancients to use the seed of rocket in seasoning their dishes; and in order to preserve it for constant use they reduced it with milk or vinegar to a kind of paste, which they fashioned into round cakes, and laid up when dry.

381

CHAPTER XIII.

EXPORTS FROM AFRICA AND THE EAST.

HAVING thus cast a rapid glance over the principal articles, natural or artificial, which commerce derived from Europe and Asia Minor, we shall pass over into Africa, in order, as nearly as possible, to ascertain what that part of the world contributed to the trade of antiquity. We shall then proceed by way of Egypt into Syria and Arabia, and from thence to Persia, India, and the farther regions of Asia, with which we will conclude our view of the commerce of the Greeks. Numerous articles of merchandise of the highest value were, from very early ages, obtained from Africa;' as gold in ingots, and gold dust, ivory, blocks of ebony and black slaves.3 The ancients have remarked, that a piece of green ebony placed near the fire kindled, and rubbed against a stone assumed a reddish colour. In some parts of the country elephants' teeth were so plentiful, that the very cattle-sheds were enclosed with palings of ivory; and the present of the Ethiopians to the Persian king consisted of twelve elephants' teeth, two hundred blocks of ebony, five black slaves, and a quantity of unwrought gold. From this country

1 Cf. Demosth. adv. Callip. § 2. Philost. Vit. Sophist. ii. 21.

§ 2. Athen. i. 49.

3 Herod. iii. 97.

4 Dioscor. i. 129.

5 Plin. Nat. Hist. viii. 10. 6 Herod. iii. 97.

7 From the same country the ancients likewise obtained the

rhinoceros, as well, no doubt, as the giraffe, sometimes paraded in their processions. Athen. v. 32. Didymus, however, supposes the giraffe to have been brought from India. Ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰνδίας ἐνεχθεῖσαν ἐθεασάμην ἐν ̓Αντιοχείᾳ καμηλοπάρδαλιν, ap. Geopon. xvi. 22. 9. Agatharchid. ap. Phot. p. 455. b.

were exported linen or flax, medicinal roots, perfumes, and aromatic spices.1

2

According to the information furnished to Herodotus by the Carthaginians, there was anciently a lake in the small island of Kerkenna, out of which the young women drew up gold dust with bunches of feathers. Africa, likewise, supplied alum,3 salt,* sory-stone, cinnabar, hexecontalithoi, blood-stones, eagle-stones, black palmati, and magnets. Anciently even diamonds are said to have been obtained from certain mines in Æthiopia, lying between the temple of Hermes and the island of Meroe."

6

A purple, rivalling that of Tyre,10 was produced from a fish caught along the northern coast. Hence, also, were obtained kermes" and ostrich feathers, with which the crests of helmets were sometimes adorned. Monkeys12 were commonly imported from

8 Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 29. 39. 25. Isidor. Orig. xvi. 4. Marbod. de Lapid. cap. xliii.

9 Plin. Nat. Hist. xxxvii, 15. 10 Iorio, Storia del Commercio, t. v. l. ii. c. x. p. 268.

11 Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 12. xxii. 3. Iorio, Storia, &c., t. iv. l. ii. c. x. p. 269. Colonel Scott, who mistakes the insects for berries, gives the following brief account of the collection and price of kermes in the territories of Abd-el-Kader : "We travelled "for the greater part of the day through a barren and moun"tainous country; but one at the

"being covered with the plant "which furnishes the kermes, a small berry about the size of a pea split in two, and which gives a dye between vermilion "and red, and is an article of con"siderable trade, selling at from 66 a dollar to one dollar and a "half per pound in Fez, whilst "here, during the month of May, "which is the season for gather"ing it, it can be procured "at from one bougou (Is. 4d.) "to one and a half per pound, "when bought from the Arabs: "but if the proper plan were "adopted, which is, to send a

party hired by the month, with "a superintendent to direct their "operations, it might be pro"cured at from eight-pence to

Africa, together with Ethiopian sheep, a species of fowl,' and various kinds of locusts which, eaten by the inhabitants only, figured among the materia medica of the Greeks. Dried and burnt, their smoke was snuffed up for certain complaints, and, reduced to powder, they were drunk in Rome as a remedy against the bite of a scorpion.3

Slabs of citron-wood, used principally in the making of tables, seem to have been obtained exclusively from this part of the world, which, likewise, furnished various kinds of beautiful marbles. Fine carbuncles for seals were obtained from the neighbourhood of Carthage, as were the emerald and the bastard emerald from a small island called Cothon, opposite that part of the coast.

5

The gum ammoniac distils in a milky juice from an umbelliferous plant growing in the desert near the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, as well as on the confines of Cyrene, whence it appears to have been chiefly exported.'

8

In the same country grew the silphion, which, according to tradition, was not indigenous to the soil, but sprang up suddenly for the first time after a violent tempest. If we can rely on this relation

7 Dioscor. iii. 98.

8 Supposed to be the prangus by several modern writers. Vigne, Ghuzni, Kabul, &c., p. 100, seq. Cf. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 3. 1. 1.5. 2. Athen. vii. 26. Aristoph. Plut. 926. Av. 534. 1578, 1581. Aristot. Hist. Animal. viii. 29.

9 At the same time a wood of trees, previously unknown in the country, sprang up. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 1. 6. Cf. on the silphion, Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 891. Plin. Nat. Hist. xix. 3. Dioscor. iii. 94. Athen. i. 49. iii. 58. Geopon. v. 48. 5. ii. 37. 1. xiii. 10. 6.

we must suppose the seed to have been borne thither by the winds, probably from some part of the interior. Both the root and the juice were exported, sometimes adulterated with bean-flowers or gum sagapenum. Marmarica supplied an extremely pungent kind of capparis,' which, also, was found on the shores of the Red Sea. The wild asparagus flourished abundantly in this country, and attained a great height.2

8

10

From Cyrenaica came an inferior sort of saffron," with truffles of a very delicate flavour, some of which were of a reddish hue," the best white hellebore, heraclean all-heal,' the herb alysson from Africa generally, with gum-ladanum, olive oil, iris roots," and terebinth berries.12 In the country of the Troglodytes, on the western part of the Red Sea, were groves of myrrh trees, the gum of which was of a palish green, pellucid, and of a biting taste.13

The euphorbium," which received its name from Euphorbius, physician to king Juba, who discovered the virtues of its juices, is found on Mount Atlas, and in most parts of northern Africa. In procuring this substance they spread a number of sheepskins round the shrub, which they then pierced with darts or lances from a distance, in order to avoid the penetrating noxious vapours which exhaled from it at its first coming in contact with the air. The same precaution, according to a modern traveller, is still practised.

Carthage traded generally in all the productions of the ancient world, her exports consequently were numerous, and among these were magnificent ta