164 
HISTORICAL  NOTES  ON  MANNA. 
to  that  of  Italy  or  Sicily.  This  is  manifest  from  the  writings  of 
Ebn  Beithar,*  one  of  the  most  eminent  and  learned  men  of  his 
time,  and  a  great  traveller ;  and  who,  being  a  native  of  Malaga, 
would  probably  when  speaking  of  manna  have  named  that  of 
Sicily,  the  more  so  as  that  island,  having  been  for  nearly  250 
years  under  Saracenic  rule,  must  have  been  familiar  to  the  Arabs 
of  Spain.  Ebn  Beithar  is  moreover  in  the  habit  of  quoting  ex- 
tensively from  other  authors.    He  died  about  A.  D.  1248. 
One  fact  may  be  held  to  prove  that  the  Saracens  could  not 
have  been  entirely  ignorant  of  the  production  of  manna  in  Sicily, 
and  it  is  this : — There  exists  a  mountain  near  Cefalu  which  is 
called  by  the  Arabic  name  Gibil-manna,  literally  Manna-moun- 
tain.^  Other  mountains  in  the  island  retain  the  Arabic  name  of 
gihil:  whether  the  word  manna  was  affixed  subsequently  to  the 
Saracenic  occupation,  or  whether,  as  is  more  probable,  the  whole 
name  was  bestowed  by  the  Arab  population  in  virtue  of  the  trees 
of  the  mountain  yielding  manna,  is  a  point  I  am  unable  to  de- 
cide.{ 
In  the  13th  century,  Sicily  was  under  the  dominion  of  the 
Emperor  Frederic  II,  a  sovereign  who  appears  to  have  been  very 
solicitous  to  develop  its  resources,  as  is  proved  by  many  docu- 
ments extant,  relative  to  the  affairs  of  the  island.  Thus  in  a 
letter  dated  A.  D.  1239,  he  directs  that  certain  Jews  settled  at 
Palermo  are  to  farm  his  date  plantations  at  Favara,  and  to  culti- 
vate them  after  their  own  manner.  He  also  writes  about  the 
cultivation  of  his  vineyards  and  the  introduction  of  indigo  and 
senna,  and  of  divers  other  plants  of  Barbary,  not  then  known 
to  grow  in  Sicily.  But  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  there  is  no 
allusion  to  manna. § 
Pegolotti,  an  Italian  who  wrote  a  sort  of  mercantile  handbook 
circa  A.  D.  1340,  has  a  chapter  on  Messina  and  Palermo,  but 
•  *Ed.  Sontheimer,  1840-42,  I,  207,  II,  533. 
t  Amico,  Lexicon  typographicum  Siculum,  III  (1760),  242. 
X  Colonel  Yule  has  remarked  that  Salmasius  in  his  Exercitationes  Pli- 
niance,  alludes  to  2/x6\/«ov  /udvvA  as  mentioned  by  the  Medici  recentiores 
Groeci,  but  without  specifying  more  particularly  who  they  are. 
§  Historia  diplomatica  Friderici  Secundi,  par  J.  L.  A.  Huillard-Bre- 
holles,  T.  iv,  213  ;  T.  v,  571. 
