PENTAXDRIA. 5 9 



He found it on the river Dnieper in swampy 

 ground, and by the natives called the stupifying shrub, 

 and by them considered to have an intoxicating qua- 

 lity, and in many cases to be efficacious as a medicine. 

 Near Oczakow he found thousands of these plants 

 fully blown in a marsh, every spring-tide overflown 

 by the sea, and saw a Tartarian farmer, who lived 

 entirely by the profits from the honey which the bees 

 extracted from their flowers sold in Constantinople 

 and other parts of Turkey for medical purposes. This 

 honey is mentioned by many ancient authors, and in 

 particular by Xenophon, Strabo, and Pliny. By 

 Xenophon its effects are recorded in his famous retreat 

 of the ten thousand Greeks when they arrived in the 

 neighbourhood of Trapezus. d 



" In general there was nothing that excited their 

 wonder : but there were in the place a number of 

 bee-hives, from which all the soldiers, who tasted the 

 honeycombs, lost their senses, and were seized with 

 vomiting, and not one of them was able to stand up- 

 right. Those who had eaten a little, became like 

 persons very drunk ; those who had taken much, like 

 madmen 3 and some even like dying persons. In 

 this manner numbers lay about, as though after a 

 defeat j and there arose a general despondency. On 

 the morrow, however, no one died ; but about the 

 same hour at which they had been seized they re- 

 covered their senses ; and on the third and fourth day 



d Trcbisond. 



