i66 The Honey-Makers 



efforts to appropriate the contents of the bee-trees, the 

 following being credited to Demetrius, a Muscovite ambas- 

 sador at Rome : — 



" A. man searching in the woods for honey slipped down 

 into a great hollow tree, where he found himself up to his 

 breast in a lake of honey. 



" He stuck fast tliere two days, making the lonely woods 

 resound in vain with his cries for help. Finally, when he 

 had abandoned hope, a large bear appeared upon the scene, 

 bent upon the same business that had taken the man there. 

 Bruin smelled the honey, that had been stirred up by the 

 struggles of the prisoner, and straightway climbed the tree 

 and let himself down backward into the hollow. The man, 

 whose wits had been sharpened by adversity, caught him 

 about the loins and made as vigorous an outcry as he could. 

 Up clambered Bruin in a panic, not knowing what thing 

 had hold of him. The man clung fast, and the bear tugged, 

 until by main force he had pulled himself and his captor 

 out of the tree ; then the man let go and Bruin took to the 

 woods with all speed, leaving his smeared companion to his 

 own congratulations." 



The lake of honey into which the man fell recalls the 

 stories one reads of lakes of honey sometimes found in 

 India. Where the heat is excessive, the combs melt, and 

 no doubt it sometimes happens that combs built in hollow 

 trees are unable to bear the tropic sun at its fiercest and 

 melt down, when the honey flows from the tree to the 

 ground beneath. 



In the Hindu " Harsa-Carita " we read in a description of 

 the hot season of its " raining beeswax in the woods from 

 the bee-hives full of melting honey, as if they were covered 

 with sweat." 



And again we are told of a sacred grove, parched and 

 waterless in the hot season, that it was " all astir with the 



