MERGE TO GYRENE. 
417 
by a sudden and heavy fall of rain, resembling which completely 
drenched the ground in the neighbourhood of the Hesperian 
Gardens and of the eastern confines of the Greater Syrtis. This 
miraculous shower is said to have occurred seven years before the 
building of the city of Cyrene ; which was erected (says Pliny) in 
the year of Rome 143. He adds, also, on the authority of Theo- 
phrastus, (the author to whom he chiefly alludes in quoting Greek 
authorities above,) that the silphium extended itself over a space of 
four thousand stadia, and that its nature was wild and unadapted to 
cultivation, retiring towards the desert whenever it was too much 
attended to. We have already observed that great care was taken 
by the ancients to preserve the silphium from the sheep and cattle, 
the former of which were remarkably fond of it : when allowed to be 
eaten, it first acted medicinally upon the animals, and afterwards 
fattened them exceedingly ; giving at the same time an excellent 
flavour to the flesh. Whenever they were ill, it either speedily 
restored them, or else destroyed them altogether ; but the first of 
these effects was most usual. It is probable, however, that it only 
agreed with those animals which were accustomed to it ; at least the 
plant now observable in the Cyrenaica, which answers to the 
description of the silphium, is very frequently productive of fatal 
effects to the animals (particularly the camels) who eat of it, not 
being accustomed to the soil. One of the reasons advanced by the 
son of Shekh Hadood, Abou-Buckra, for putting a high price upon 
his camels at Merge (on the occasion already before the reader) was 
that they were going into the country where the silphium was 
found, which, he said, was very dangerous for them to eat ; and the 
