On the second night we pitched the tents at Margàd where we found a supply of water in an ancient cistern belonging to a fort on the hill close to it. Here were also several Arab tents, with flocks of sheep feeding about them. The Arabs received us very civilly, always offering milk and lèban, although our guides would have made us believe that they were greatly averse to our passing through their country. On quitting Margàd, we pursued our route through a country very similar to that of the preceding day; but along a much worse road, which obliged us to lead our horses nearly one half of the way. We had not gone far before a quarrel took place between Abou-Bukra and one of our servants, and the former, pretending to be seriously affronted, took the opportunity (never neglected by an Arab) of letting us know how necessary he was to us and declared he would stay no longer. He accordingly rode off, and all his people followed him, leaving the camels without any drivers, in expectation no doubt that we should immediately ride after them and entreat them to resume their occupations.
In this, however, we were determined not to gratify them, and took no other notice of their departure than by telling our servants to drive the camels on themselves, which they managed to do very well. The worst part of the story was our ignorance of the road, and we were greatly at a loss, among the many narrow pathways that led through the thickets, to determine on which we ought to take. Unluckily our chaous knew no more of this road than ourselves; but we took the direction which we imagined to be the right one, and contrived to get on with tolerable success.
Abou-Bukra had before been often trying to persuade us that the Arabs of the place were much averse to our passing through their territory, and expatiating on the value of his protection and influence; he probably imagined that we should be greatly alarmed at the idea of being left to ourselves in a hostile country; and he knew, at the same time, that we could not possibly be acquainted with a single step of the road. His disappointment must, therefore, have been very great, when he found that no one rode after him, or took any measures towards effecting a reconciliation. In the mean time we continued to get on very well, and were convinced that if we did so we should soon be rejoined by the deserters; accordingly, before the day was concluded the whole party returned, and of their own accord entered upon their several duties as before, just as if nothing had happened. This was precisely what we had expected, and we made no comments either upon their arrival or departure as if we had been indifferent to both. Abou-Bukra was now all civility, and his people drove the camels much better than ever they had done before! Towards the close of the day we arrived at some Arab tents, and pitched our own close to them for the night, in a valley for which we could obtain no name; but which, whatever might have been its title, was certainly a very delightful one. During the last two days a hot sirocco wind had been blowing, which rendered the travelling extremely oppressive, especially during the heat of the day; on the afternoon of the third day, however, it suddenly changed to the north-west and brought a smart shower of rain, which cooled the air a good deal, and was the first which we had had for some time.
The country from Margád to Grenna, the present Arab name for Cyrene, is of the same hilly nature as that already described; but on approaching Cyrene it becomes more clear of wood, the vallies produce fine crops of barley, and the hills excellent pasturage for cattle.
It may here be proper to mention that, on the day after our departure from Merge, we observed a plant about three feet in height very much resembling the hemlock, or, more properly speaking perhaps, the Daucas or wild carrot. We were told that it was usually fatal to the camels who ate of it, and that its juice if applied to the flesh, would fester any part where there was the slightest excoriation. This plant had much more resemblance to the silphium of ancient times (as it is expressed on the coins of Cyrene) than any which we had hitherto seen; although its stem is much more slender than that which is there represented, and the blossoms (for it has several) more open. In some parts of the route from Merge to Cyrene we lost sight of this plant altogether; while at others we found it in considerable quantities, growing chiefly wherever there was pasturage. Immediately about Cyrene we observed it in great abundance; and soon ceased, from its frequent occurrence, to pay any particular attention to it.
It is extremely probable that the plant here mentioned is the laserpitium or silphium in such repute among the ancients; and it may not here be amiss to collect a few of the remarks which have been made at various periods respecting it.
According to Herodotus the silphium originally extended from the island of Platea to the beginning of the Greater Syrtis[2], a space including the whole of the mountainous district of the Cyrenaica; and Scylax, after mentioning the islands Aedonia and Platæa, informs us that, beyond these (in passing from east to west) are the regions which produce the silphium. We may also infer from a passage in Arrian[3], that the silphium extended itself over the whole of the fertile part of the Cyrenaica to the confines of the desert which bounds it; since he tells us that the fertility of this country continued as far as the limits of the silphium itself, and that beyond these boundaries all was desert and sandy. Theophrastus also observes that the silphium was found in the Cyrenaica, and that the greater portion of it was produced from the country of the Hesperides in the parts about the Greater Syrtis[4]. It appears to have sprung up in the grass, or pasture lands, as the plant we have mentioned above also does, and the sheep are reported to have been so fond of it that whenever they smelt it they would run to the place, and after eating the flower, would scratch up the root and devour it with the same avidity[5]. On this account (says Arrian, who has recorded the fact just mentioned) some of the Cyreneans drive their sheep away from the parts in which the silphium is produced; and others surround their land with hedges, through which the sheep are not able to pass when they chance to approach near the plants[6]. Silphium appears to have been found in many parts of Asia, as well as in some parts of Europe; but that of Cyrene was much the most esteemed and constituted a material part of the commerce of that country, as we find from various authorities[7]. In the time of Pliny silphium (or laserpitium) had become so scarce in the market, that a single stalk of it was presented to the Emperor Nero as a present (no doubt) of extraordinary value; and Strabo tells us that the barbarous tribes who frequented the country about the Cyrenaica had nearly exterminated the plant altogether (in an irruption which they made on some hostile occasion) by pulling it designedly up by the roots; from which we may infer that the destruction of the silphium was considered as a material injury to Cyrene[8]. We have already mentioned in our account of the Syrtis (on the authority of the same writer) that the silphium and the liquor which was extracted from it formed material articles of a contraband trade at Charax, where they were exchanged with the Carthaginians for wine[9]. And we have ventured, on the same occasion, to differ in opinion with Dr. Della Cella as to the propriety of adopting the change in Strabo’s text proposed by that gentleman (p. 79); as it sufficiently appears, from various authorities, that both the plant and the extract were articles of commerce, and not the extract only, as the Doctor has stated. This is evident from the remarks of ancient writers on the subject[10]; and it is also certain that the liquor (or οπος του σιλφιου, in Latin termed Laser) was obtained from the stem as well as from the root, as Theophrastus, and Pliny (on his authority) have testified[11].
It is evident also from both these authors that the stem of the silphium was in request as an article of food, and was eaten in several ways[12]. This appears equally in Athenæus; and we find both the extract, and the plant, very decidedly mentioned in the bill of fare of the Persian monarchs, as given by Polyænus (Stratagemata, Lib. iv.) and which was discovered by Alexander the Great, engraved on a brazen column in the royal palace. Here we see two pounds, and upwards, of the extract, or juice of the silphium, termed by Pliny Laser; and a talent weight (about sixty-five pounds) of the plant itself in the list[13]. What the extract of the silphium was like we will not pretend to say; but the stem and the root appear to have been eaten much in the same way that we eat celery, (which indeed it very much resembles,) either stewed or boiled[14].
The silphium is described by Theophrastus as a plant with a large and thick root; and the stem, he tells us, resembled that of the ferula, and was of about the same thickness. The leaf which, he says, was termed maspetum (μασπετον), resembled that of parsley: the seed was broad and foliaceous: the stem annual, like that of the ferula[15]. Pliny’s account is copied from that of Theophrastus; but he has given us at the same time whatever information he could collect of the silphium and its properties in the age in which he himself lived. He informs us that—the celebrated plant Laserpitium, which the Greeks call silphium, was found in the Cyrenaica; and that the juice, or liquor, extracted from it was termed Laser; a drug so famous for its medicinal qualities that it was sold by the denarius[16], seven of which, or eight drams, were equal to the English avoirdupois ounce, which was the same with the Roman.
For many years past (he continues) no silphium has been found in the Cyrenaica; the owners of the land having thought it more profitable to turn their sheep and cattle into the pasture lands (where the silphium, as we have before mentioned, is produced) than to preserve the plant as formerly. One only stem of it (it is Pliny who speaks) has been found in my recollection, which was sent to the Emperor Nero. And of late no other laser has been brought to us than that which grows extensively in Persia, Media, and Armenia, and which is very inferior to that of the Cyrenaica, being at the same time adulterated with gum, sagapeum, and pounded beans. We learn from the same author that in the consulships of C. Valerius, and M. Herennius, thirty lbs. of laserpitium was brought into Rome, which seems to have been considered as a very fortunate occurrence; and that Cæsar, when dictator, at the commencement of the civil war, took from the public treasury, with the gold and silver which he carried away from it, an hundred and eleven pounds of the silphium (or laserpitium[17]); which proves how valuable the plant was at Rome, as, indeed, might be reasonably inferred from the circumstance of its being found in the treasury at all.