THE CAROB. 31 



relics of a tertiary vegetation preserved by the 

 exceptional mildness of this district. A single severe 

 Winter, or even a single night of extreme cold, like 

 that of January 13, 1826, when the thermometer fell 

 to almost ten below zero Centigrade, would suffice to 

 destroy the Carob and many other species. 



Other botanists explain the presence of a southern 

 evergreen flora on the Riviera by supposing that these 

 plants are better able to press northwards on dry and 

 warm calcareous formations than on clay soil, which 

 is damper and colder. But these same evergreen trees 

 and shrubs flourish also on those parts of the coast, 

 at Cannes, for instance, where the soil is not calcare- 

 ous. The evergreen shrubs in the Azores, Madeira, 

 and the Canary Islands grow on various soils indiffer- 

 ently ; even on basaltic and trachytic rocks. 



The large chocolate brown saccharine pods are 

 sold for feeding cattle. Boys have been known to eat 

 them what will a boy not swallow ? and in the last 

 war against Turkey the unfortunate Russian soldiers 

 were compelled to live upon them. In ancient times 

 these Carob pods seem to have been, as they are still, 

 the last resource of the poor and destitute. The 

 "husks that the swine did eat" (Luke xv. 16) were 

 Carobs ; and John Baptist's " locusts" may have been 

 none other than these same fruits. Hence the 

 German name " Johannisbrod." 



W. F. Kirby, the well-known entomological 

 writer, gives me the following note on this point : 

 " Of course John may have eaten Carob pods, but 

 there is no doubt that locusts themselves are intended 

 in the narrative. The Jews were allowed to eat 

 them, and they are still largely eaten by the Arabs. 



