Man's Work on the Farm 347 



that one cannot suppose it to have sprung from the 

 seeds scattered by birds; and if tradition is to be 

 believed, the trees grew from the pegs used in picket- 

 ing the horses of an army proceeding to the Soudan. 

 Owing perhaps to some sudden alarm, the camp was 

 hastily broken up, and the pegs, cut from olive-trees in 

 the neighbourhood, were left behind and took root. 



No trees but evergreens — the olive, cypress, and 

 oleander — are depicted upon the walls of Pompeii; 

 from which it seems that the beeches, and other trees, 

 had been either exterminated or driven into the moun- 

 tains, or at least had ceased to be in any way conspicu- 

 ous, by the time these works of art were executed. 



What plants may have been introduced purposely, 

 or accidentally, by the Phoenicians, who had trading 

 stations all about the Mediterranean, in Europe as 

 Well as in Africa, we have no record to tell us ; but, 

 judging by what we have seen in other instances, it is 

 impossible to suppose but that some plants followed, 

 or were conveyed by them to the various coasts they 

 visited. And their voyages extended westwards as far 

 as Britain, and south as far as Senegal. 



Nor do we know much more of the effects produced 

 by the wars of Greece and Persia, or the expeditions 

 of Alexander the Great, which took him as far as 

 India. Rice was certainly made known to the Greeks 

 by the conquests of the latter ; but no attempt seems 

 to have been made at cultivating it. 



It is in the second century (b.c.) that the Chinese 

 first came into contact with Western Asia, on the 

 occasion of their helping the Scythians to ravage 

 the shores of the Caspian Sea. A little later, their 

 ambassador, Chang-Kien, followed on a peaceful mis- 



