GEOGRAPHY OF THE GENERA. 
83 
poses, is attested by the vigilance, care, and assiduity 
with which bees are tended in every country. Although 
sugar, since its introduction to those northern countries 
which have not been favoured by nature with the cane 
that yields it, has superseded for ordinary uses the pro¬ 
duce of the hive, this still continues serviceable for many 
purposes to which sugar cannot be applied. It is used 
in many ways in pharmacy, and still retains in the in¬ 
terior of some continents, owing to the deficiency of 
sugar, arising from the difficulties and expenses of transit, 
all its primitive uses. In the East, even in countries pro¬ 
ducing sugar in abundance, honey is extensively employed 
for the preservation of fruits, which in their ripe state in 
those hot climates would rapidly lose their fulness of 
flavour were they not thus protected, — honey here 
being esteemed superior to sugar in the circumstance of 
its not crystallizing by reason of the heat, and also from 
its applicability to this use in its natural state. 
This is especially the case in China, where a conserve 
of green ginger, and of a fragrant orange (the Cum Quat), 
are in high repute, and which are peculiarly grateful to 
Europeans on the spot. These, how r ever, are so delicately 
susceptible of change of climate, that they lose some of 
the aroma that constitutes much of their attraction, 
upon transportation, and, indeed, like many kinds of 
Southern wines, can be appreciated only within their 
own country, from their extreme delicacy and tendency 
to spoil. 
Honey is a very favourite food and medicine with the 
Bedouins in Northern Arabia. Bees make their hives 
in all the crevices of rocks in Hedscha, finding every¬ 
where aromatic plants and flowers. At Taif, bees yield 
most excellent honey, and the honey at Mecca is ex- 
G 2 
