THE TERFAS OF AFRICA AND THE ORIENT 



the truffle. The price which they bring 

 upon the market is more comparable to that 

 of the mushroom, — sometimes, indeed, less 

 than one franc per kilo. They do not often 

 find their way to the markets of Europe, and 

 seldom are they to be had in any of the 

 larger coast cities of Algeria, except, per- 

 haps, Algiers. Nevertheless, from the 

 point of view of flavor I am at a loss to ac- 

 count for the high esteem in which these 

 plants were held by the contemporaries of 

 Theophrastus, unless the species common in 

 Lesbos, Cyrene, etc., is more fragrant than 

 those of the Northern Sahara. That they 

 were held in unbounded esteem in those 

 days will be shown by the following passage 

 from Juvenal: " ^Keep your grain, O Af- 

 rica,' said Aletius, ^unyoke your oxen, pro- 

 vided only you send us truffles.' " And 

 again Juvenal blames the over-indulgent 

 father for encouraging his son in luxurious 

 habits since he teaches him "to peel the 

 truffle and to put up the boletus in spices." 



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