The island of Tylos, now Bahrein,[[2591]] on the coast of Lahsa, in the Persian gulf, is said to have furnished excellent timber for ship-building, which in the water would last upwards of two hundred years.[[2592]] Could this have been a species of teak?[[2593]] Here, also, as well as on the continent grew the cotton tree in great abundance, from which the natives manufactured coarse calicoes and fine muslins. Another production of the island was a tree bearing inodorous flowers resembling the white violet, though four times as large. Here, too, was found another tree with leaves like the rose, which being fully expanded at noon contracted as the day advanced, and closed entirely at night, when the tree, by the natives, was said to sleep. The same thing, by the people of India, is at present predicated of the Averrhoa Carambola.
The fertility of this island may be compared with that of Thasos. Here grew in abundance the date palm, the vine, the olive, the apple, and most kinds of nuts, with fig trees which never shed their foliage. No value was set upon the moisture derived from the clouds; on the contrary, when any showers fell, the inhabitants were careful immediately afterwards to irrigate their plantations, as if to wash away the rain. With this they were, in fact, enabled to dispense, on account of the number of fountains and streams of water which there abounded.[[2594]]
From Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, and the adjacent countries, the Greeks obtained a number of valuable commodities, of which far too meagre an account has been left us by the ancients. Of these the most curious, however, may be said to have been the naphtha, or rock oil, which springs forth spontaneously from the earth in several parts of those regions lying between the Caspian and the Persian gulf.[[2595]] The most remarkable of their oil springs was found of old near Ecbatana, now Hamadan, where Alexander was smitten with astonishment at beholding a torrent of flame ascending perpetually out of the earth.
This everlasting fire was supplied through subterraneous channels with naphtha, which in the vicinity welled forth from the soil and formed a small lake. This naphtha, clear, when pure, as fine oil, is, perhaps, the most inflammable substance known, kindling by the invisible gases which surround it considerably before it comes into actual contact with fire. Several experiments illustrative of its qualities were performed for the amusement of the son of Philip. In the first place certain Persians sprinkled with it the street leading to the royal quarters, and then applying a torch to the earth at the farther end of it, the flame ran along with the rapidity of thought, so that in an instant the whole street seemed to be converted into a channel of fire.
On another occasion one Athenophanes, a profligate buffoon who had abandoned the sweets of freedom at Athens to attend on the Macedonian tyrant, being along with his master in the bath, advised him in the true spirit of a courtier to make a cruel experiment of the power of the naphtha on a poor youth named Stephanos, of homely person and comic expression of face, but gifted with a magnificent voice, and who used apparently to divert Alexander while bathing.
“Shall we try the force of this substance on Stephanos? For, if it kindle and prove difficult to be extinguished on him its powers may truly be said to be altogether strange and irresistible!”
The youth readily consented to encounter the peril. As soon, however, as he had been anointed with it and brought near a fire the naphtha[[2596]] instantaneously kindled, and his whole body was sheathed in flame to the extreme perplexity and terror of Alexander. He would, in fact, have been reduced to ashes had there not been at hand many persons bearing vessels of cold water for the baths, which pouring over him they with extreme difficulty extinguished the flames. He, nevertheless, felt severely the effect of his royal master’s inhuman curiosity.[[2597]]
Certain writers, desirous of giving an historical explanation of the legends of the mythology, suppose the golden crown and veil sent by Medea to Creüsa, which utterly consumed her in the presence of her family, to have been smeared with naphtha;[[2598]] for the flames burst not forth spontaneously from the ornaments themselves, but a fire burning near, they, by a subtle power, attracted its seeds and were kindled invisibly.[[2599]]
It was believed by the ancients that the country of Babylonia was pervaded throughout by veins of fire, which maintained a perpetual inflammation in the earth and produced towards the surface a species of pulsation. For, according to them, grains of barley being cast upon the soil would leap up and rebound, for which, however, other causes might be assigned. But the heat of the climate is undoubtedly prodigious, and, to mitigate it, we are told, the ancient inhabitants were accustomed to sleep on skins filled with water. Harpalos, who was made governor of the province by Alexander, laboured to acclimate there the trees and plants of Greece, and succeeded in everything excepting ivy which, delighting in a cold soil, could not be reconciled to the “temper of that fiery mould.”[[2600]]
There was obtained from Persia a gum of singularly healing qualities, which on this account received the name of sarcocolla,[[2601]] or flesh-glue, as, also, kermes,[[2602]] cardamums,[[2603]] pistachio nuts,[[2604]] artichokes,[[2605]] amomum,[[2606]] hemlock,[[2607]] silphion,[[2608]] and citrons. Persia likewise exported gold solder,[[2609]] onyx shells,[[2610]] whetstones,[[2611]] and jaspers,[[2612]] one kind of which was intersected with white veins. Amulets of this stone were much used in incantations. From the province of Bactriana emeralds of great beauty, but of small size, were procured for the studding of costly cups or goblets. They were found in a sandy and desert tract of country, the one apparently which separates Khorasan from Balkh and Khawaresmia during the prevalence of the Etesian gales which, unsettling and shifting the sand, kept constantly laid open fresh spots which were, in many cases, strewed with gems. The search for these emeralds, a hardy and laborious undertaking, was performed by horsemen who, by fleet riding, could scour the wilderness in a brief space of time, bending their keen glances hither and thither as they moved along.[[2613]]