160 ISLAND OF SYROS. 
CHAP, possess the healing and salutary quality of Sage 
i_ T '_. in general: we perceived in it an agreeable 
astringent, and somewhat bitter flavour ; but as 
almost any vegetable may be used for con- 
serves, and the savour is often owing to other 
ingredients, very little of this taste might be 
owing to the Sage. The plant itself thrives 
abundantly upon this island, growing to the 
size of a small shrub. Sags leaves are collected 
annually by the Greeks, and dried, to be used 
medicinally, as an infusion : they are very par- 
ticular in the time and manner of collecting 
these leaves ; they are gathered on the first of 
May, before sun-rise. The flavour and smell 
pf the Grecian Sage is much more powerful than 
in the Saluia officinalis, so common in the English 
gardens. We sometimes drank an infusion of 
the leaves, instead of tea : it had the effect of 
exciting a profuse perspiration, and perhaps 
may be useful in those dangerous obstructions 
to which perspiration is liable in an 1'lastern 
climate ; but it produces languor, and even 
faintness, if it be used to excess. In mentioning 
Plants, the plants of Syra, there is one of so much 
beauty and rarity, that it ought not to pass 
without especial notice : it is called the Tree 
Pink, DIAXTHUS ARBOREUS, and pre-eminently 
merits its lofty name of AIO2 AN0O2. It grows 
