THE SPICE ISLANDS OF EURGPE 
WHEN Boswell went to Corsica, and had to walk through 
the mountains to his first stopping-place on the night of 
his arrival, he tells us that ‘‘ at first he was refreshed and 
struck by the fragrant, aromatic odours of the shrubs, 
which smother the lower slopes—the marvellous and 
uniquely - scented Macchi, the Myrtle, Cistus,1 White 
Heather, and a thousand other plants of whose names 
he was ignorant.” 
In that delightful book ‘‘In Sicily,” by Douglas 
Sladen, there is much said about the sweet wild 
flowers, the herbs, and the fragrant trees and shrubs 
of that sunny island, which is really more Greek than 
Italian in its botany as in its ancient architecture. 
‘‘T cannot attempt to describe the garden flowers of 
Syracuse,—irrigation will do anything in that fostering 
climate. . . . I have purposely left to the last the 
masses of Rosemary and Vermouth, cultivated and wild, 
the Wild Mint, the Horse Mint, the Pepper Mint, the 
Wild Sage and Wild Thyme, and a score of other aromatic 
and health-giving herbs.” . . . Again he says, ‘ Sicily is 
one vast herbarium. In every old wall, on every un- 
cultivated patch grows some medicinal herb. ‘There 
are shops in every city devoted to the sale of dry herbs, 
and looking like astrologers’ dens. Every man, woman, 
1 Cistus monspeliensis—narrow foliage, white flower, common along 
the Riviera, strongly scenting the air after rain with its resinous odour. 
Corsica is covered with it; and Napoleon said he should know his 
native land with his eyes shut from the scent of this plant.—C. Bicknell, 
“ Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Riviera.” 
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