Honey 189 



suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, with a total inability 

 to stand steady on their legs. A small dose produced a con- 

 dition not unlike violent drunkenness, a large one an attack 

 very like a fit of madness, and some dropped down, appar- 

 ently at death's door. So they lay, hundreds of them, as 

 if there had been a great defeat, a prey to the cruellest 

 despondency. But the next day, none had died ; and al- 

 most at the same hour of the day at which they had eaten 

 they recovered their senses, and on the third or fourth day 

 got on their legs again like convalescents after a severe 

 course of medical treatment." 



Strabo tells a still more harrowing tale of the honey of 

 Pontus. After describing the mountains and speaking of 

 the savage Heptacometae who inhabited them he continues : 



"All the inhabitants of these mountains are quite savage, 

 but the Heptacometae are more so than all the others. 

 The Heptacometae cut off three of Pompey's cohorts, as 

 they were passing through the mountains, by placing on 

 their road vessels filled with maddening honey, which is 

 procured from the branches of trees. The men who had 

 tasted the honey and lost their senses were attacked and 

 easily despatched.'*' 



Pliny has a good deal to say of poisonous honey : — 



" Indeed, the food of bees is of the very greatest impor- 

 tance as it is owing to this that we meet with poisonous 

 honey even. At Heraclita in Pontus the honey is extremely 

 pernicious in certain years, though it is the same bees that 

 make it at other times, .^galethron (goat's death) proves 

 fatal to beasts of burden and particularly to goats, and its 

 blossoms steeped in the rains of a wet spring contract 

 most noxious properties." 



The beautiful rhododendron flowers that are abundant 



1 Not all of the honey of Pontus was poisonous, however, as that 

 made from the balm held a very high place. 



