e known fruits. Among its various
productions of this class, it is only possible to select for notice
a few which were especially remarkable either for their rarity or for
their excellent quality.

The ancients celebrated the wheat of AEolis, the dates of Babylon,
the citrons of Media, the Persian peach, the grapes of Carmania,
the Hyrcanian fig, the plum of Damascus, the cherries of Pontus, the
mulberries of Egypt and of Cyprus, the silphium of Gyrene, the wine of
Helbon, the wild-grape of Syria. It is not unlikely that to these
might have been added as many other vegetable products of first-rate
excellence, had the ancients possessed as good a knowledge of the
countries included within the Empire as the moderns. At present, the
mulberries of Khiva, the apricots of Bokhara, the roses of Mexar, the
quinces and melons of Isfahan, the grapes of Kasvin and Shii-az, the
pears of Natunz, the dates of Dalaki, have a wide-spread reputation,
which appears in most cases to be well deserved. On the whole, it is
certain that for variety and excellence the vegetable products of the
Persian Empire will bear comparison with those of any other state or
community that has as yet existed, either in the ancient or the modern
world.

Two only of these products seem to deserve a longer description. The
Cyrenaic silphium, of which we hear so much, as constituting the main
wealth of that province, was valued chiefly for its medicinal qualities.
A decoction from its leaves was used to hasten the worst kind of labors;
its root and a juice which flowed from it were employed in a variety
of maladies. The plant, which is elaborately described by Theophrastus,
appears to have been successfully identified by modern travellers in
the Cyrenaica, who see it in the drias or derias of the Arabs, an
umbelliferous plant, which grows to a height of about three feet, has a
deleterious effect on the camels that browse on it, and bears a striking
resemblance to the representations of the ancient silphium upon
coins and medals. This plant grows only in the tract between Merj and
Derna--the very heart of the old silphium country, while that it has
medicinal properties is certain from its effects upon animals; there can
thus be little doubt that it is the silphium of the ancients, somewhat
degenerated, owing to want of cultivation.

The Egyptian byblus or papyrus (_Cyperus papyrus_) was perhaps the
most valuable of all the vegetables of the Empire. The plant