[2393]. Athen. v. 40.
[2394]. It is now found in gardens on the gulf of Cadiz. “The Spartium Junceum (Spanish broom) showed its admirable flowers over a garden-wall which was higher than a man’s head. This plant is discoverable at a great distance by its fine smell.” Osbeck, Voyage to China, i. 81.
[2395]. Strab. iii. 4. t. i. p. 275.
[2396]. Dioscor. ii. 69.
[2397]. Id. iii. 170.
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;[[2398]] as gold in ingots, and gold dust, ivory,[[2399]] blocks of ebony and black slaves.[[2400]] The ancients have remarked, that a piece of green ebony placed near the fire kindled, and rubbed against a stone assumed a reddish colour.[[2401]] In some parts of the country elephants’ teeth were so plentiful, that the very cattle-sheds were enclosed with palings of ivory;[[2402]] and the present of the Æthiopians to the Persian king[[2403]] consisted of twelve elephants’ teeth, two hundred blocks of ebony, five black slaves, and a quantity of unwrought gold.[[2404]] From this country were exported linen or flax, medicinal roots, perfumes, and aromatic spices.[[2405]]
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.[[2406]] Africa, likewise, supplied alum,[[2407]] salt,[[2408]] sory-stone,[[2409]] cinnabar,[[2410]] hexecontalithoi,[[2411]] blood-stones, eagle-stones, black palmati, and magnets.[[2412]] 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.[[2413]]
A purple, rivalling that of Tyre,[[2414]] was produced from a fish caught along the northern coast. Hence, also, were obtained kermes[[2415]] and ostrich feathers, with which the crests of helmets were sometimes adorned. Monkeys[[2416]] were commonly imported from Africa, together with Æthiopian sheep, a species of fowl,[[2417]] and various kinds of locusts[[2418]] 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.[[2419]]