224 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



strewed singly as x a garnish over certain savoury 

 viands, and form part of the o//o, a dish composed of 

 bacon, cabbage, pumpkin, and garvanzos, with which 

 a Spanish dinner almost invariably commences. The 

 chick-pea, when parched, has been much esteemed 

 among many nations from the earliest periods of 

 history, and in that state it still continues an article 

 of great consumption. According to Bellonius,* 

 this pea was the parched pulse which formed the 

 common provision of the Hebrews when they took 

 the field ; and Cassianus "f supposes it to have been 

 the terrified seed mentioned by Plautus and Aristo- 

 phanes. The frictum cicer seems also to have con- 

 stituted a part of the usual food of the lower orders at 

 Rome. J 



In those warm and arid countries where travellers 

 are constrained to carry their scanty provisions witb 

 them across vast desert tracts, they gladly supply 

 themselves with small dried substances which require 

 much mastication, and thus stimulate the salivary 

 glands. Under these circumstances parched chick- 

 peas, or leblebby, are in great demand, and are 

 as common in the shops as biscuits in those of Eng- 

 land. In Grand Cairo and Damascus there are 

 many persons who make it their sole business to fry 

 peas, for the supply of those who traverse the desert. 



The seeds of the kerkedan, a small shrub found 

 growing wild and sometimes cultivated in the north of 

 Nubia, are made into a kind of bread, and form the 

 principal food of the Kerrarish Arabs ; and a decoc- 

 tion of the roasted grains is used as a substitute for 

 coffee. Another shrub, called symka, indigenous 

 to the same country, produces legumes resembling 



* Calm. Diet. Bibl., lib. ii, cap. 53. 

 t Cassian. Collat. 8. 



t Plautus Bacch. act iv, 6, 7. Hor. Serm. lib. 2, sat. 3, 1. 

 182 ; de Arte Poet. ), 249. 



