THE VINE AND CIVILISATION. Lg 
** Seio still produces wine called Homer’s Nectar, as it did 
two thousand years ago. The white and black grapes are 
mingled to make this wine, which is much esteemed in the 
Archipelago; it was anciently in great repute. Czsar gave 
a hundred vessels of it on the occasion of his triumph. The 
use of resin, mingled with the wines to impart a short-lived 
durability, is considered by the Greeks to impart a necessary 
and agreeable flavour. 
THE VINES OF PERSIA AND THE EAST. 
‘* The consent of universal tradition has bestowed the origin 
of the vineyard upon Persia. The fruit of the vine in that 
country reaches a remarkable size, and the provinces border- 
- ing on the southern end of the Caspian Sea have always been 
noted for excellent wine. A great deal of wine is drank 
secretly in Persia by the Mahomedans, independently of what 
is consumed by the numerous inhabitants of that country who 
are not of the Moslem creed. Mandelsloe, in 1638, says Shiraz 
was noted for the excellence of its wine and the beauty of its 
women, and reports a saying of the Persians, that ‘If Ma- 
homed had been sensible of the pleasures of Shiraz he would 
have begged of God to make him immortal there.’ Of late years 
the manufacture of wine even at Shiraz has been neglected, and 
it is much to be feared the products of the still has taken its 
place with the Mahomedans in their covert libations to Bac- 
chus, 
‘At Damascus the ‘ wine of Tyre’ of the Scriptures, called 
by Ezekiel ‘wine of Helbon,’ and by the Greeks ‘ wine of 
Chalybon,’ is yet made; it is a sweet wine. On Mount Li- 
banus, at Kesroan, good wines are grown. In cultivating these 
vines on Mount Lebanon the plow is used, the rows being suf- 
