Scrub 



(Laurus nobilis), and there is a rich undergrowth of 

 Rhododendron ponticum. 2 



Unfortunately we have no means of studying the vege- 

 tation as it was in the days of Romulus and Remus, or 

 when Hercules started on his tour of the Mediterranean. 



But the character of the usual Mediterranean agri- 

 culture, and the enormous time that has elapsed since 

 man and his domestic animals first settled in those 

 beautiful and sunny lands, are quite enough to explain 

 the present flora. 



There is also some evidence which can be obtained 

 from historical sources. There were, e.g. (i 550-1600 

 A.D.), 30,000,000 sheep in Spain alone. They were kept 

 in enormous flocks, and travelled every year from their 

 summer pastures in the north to their winter quarters 

 in the Val de Alondia, returning northwards in spring. 

 That same system prevailed in late Roman times in 

 Southern France, and is of course not unusual in some 

 parts of Australia to-day. 3 



On the wide plains of Lower Andalusia there are now 

 only little thorny bushes of Genista, scented Labiates, 

 esparto steppes, or dwarf palms. But about the begin- 

 ning of the sixteenth century that very district contained 

 vast fields of wheat, as well as olive and mulberry plan- 

 tations. The change is set down by historians to the 

 expulsion of the Moors by Philip II. and his successors. 



Slave-labour is particularly convenient in such a 

 country as this, and Moorish slaves may have made 

 cultivation possible in places where nothing could be 

 done without slave labour. 



In Braunton Great Field one can also see what must 

 have closely resembled the present methods very often 

 used in the Mediterranean. 



The land which is under cultivation is often terraced, 

 carefully irrigated, and painfully laboured over. Through- 



3°9 



