150 



ATTIGA. 



strictly watched, that they could not procure me even a taste of it. 

 The solitary sparrow flew along the walls, and thrushes and black- 

 birds seemed almost unmolested in the olive grounds. 



The following extract from Dr. Sibthorp's Journals relating to part of 



Attica may be inserted here. 



" July 24. — We anchored in the port of Sunium. At present this 

 famous promontory of Attica affords neither inhabitants nor cultiva- 

 tion. I saw here partridges, hares, and a small species of black hawk 

 flew frequent near the ground. Our sailors caught two species of the 

 Labrus, different from the L. Iulis, which I suspect to be new ; one 

 uncommonly beautiful, with three deep transverse red stripes, called 

 by the Greeks "HXic. The country about the cape was covered with 

 low mastic bushes, and here and there some scattered trees of the 

 Pinus Pinea, which Chandler seems to have mistaken for cedars ; 

 these, though frequently mentioned by that traveller, never grew 

 wild in Greece." — Dr. S. 



Note, from the Earl of Aberdeen' s Journal, referred to in page 146". 



" Bailey is chiefly cultivated in Attica, and the plain of Thria is still somewhat supe- 

 rior in fertility to the other districts of the country. 



" It is the practice to turn the horses out into the green barley.* This is done in the 

 month of May ; at that time the fields are seen full of horses and asses, tied each to a 



* In the spring season, in parts of Syria, the horses are fed forty or fifty days with green bar- 

 ley, cut as soon as the corn begins to ear. The horses of the grandees are frequently tied down 

 in the barley-field, being confined to a certain circuit by a long tedder. Grazing is reckoned to 

 be of great service to the health of the horses, and produces a beautiful gloss on the skin. Russell's 

 Aleppo, ii. 178. Lucerne is also cultivated for the use of the horses; oats are not given to them. 

 Some fields of this grain were observed by Russel about Antioch and on the sea-coast, but they 

 were not cultivated near Aleppo. Bpu^t, or oats, were seen in Boeotia, by Dr. Sibthorp. 



