BEE MANUAL. 5 
hives deposited in the hollows of old trees and in the cavities 
of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable branch 
of commerce, . . . all displayed the liberality of nature 
and tempted the industry of man.” The same writer tells us 
that in the time of Constantine the Great (a.D. 306 to 337) 
the people of Chersonesus (the present Crimea) were supplied 
from the Roman Provinces of the East, with corn and manu- 
factures ‘“‘ whichthey purchased with their only productions, salt, 
wax and hides.” The ambassadors of Theodosius II. to Attila, 
king of the Huns, when travelling through part of the country 
now called Hungary (about A.D. 450) “received from the con- 
tiguous villages a plentiful supply of provisions,” amongst 
which is noted ‘mead instead of wine.” But however 
primitive may have been the mode of obtaining honey in 
those unsettled countries, great progress, both in the art of 
bee-keeping and in mercantile dealings in honey and wax, 
must have been made in the civilised provinces, as it is 
mentioned, on the authority of a writer named Synesius, 
that when the Goths, under Alaric, sacked the city of Athens, 
A.D. 396, that city ‘was at that time less famous for its 
schools of philosophy than for its trade in honey.” 
In the seventh century the Emperor Heraclius raised a sort 
of forced loan from the churches at Constantinople to meet 
some war expenses, and on that occasion it is related that 
barrels of honey (ostensibly) packed away among the church 
stores were found to be really filled with gold. This anecdote 
serves to indicate how extensively honey was used, and how it 
was kept in those times. About the same time, when Persia 
was overrun by the Saracen Caliph, after the great battle of 
Nehavend, the fugitive general of the Persians was stopped 
and overtaken “in a crowd of camels and mules laden with 
honey,” an incident which, as Gibbon remarks, ‘ however 
slight or singular, will denote the luxurious impedimenta 
of an Oriental army.” It is also related that Mahomet, 
who was very temperate and sparing in his diet, ‘“ delighted 
in the taste of milk and honey ;” and that this taste was 
general among the Arabs we may conclude from the 
circumstance mentioned by Gibbon, that with them “the 
perfection of language out-stripped the refinements of 
manners, and their speech could diversify the fourscore names 
of honey.” 
