predations on land. In one of these incurfions, three of them were taken and condemned to death. Only fixteen men remained on the rock. They demanded a capitulation, and obtained honourable terms, even for their fellows who were under fentence of death. The landing-place was defended by flight fortifications that are almoft entire. The walls of the governor's house, and of the houses of the garrifon, do ftill remain. Even at the easiest place landing is difficult, except at high-water. Steps might be cut in the rock at a small expence; and at any rate, there ought to be a rope to affift people in climbing up: if the tide, which ebbs 19 feet, is low, it is as neceffary in coming down. A bad winding foot-path leads up to the chapel, now in ruins, and to the governor's garden, which is not far from the top of the hill, and has in the midst of it a well of fresh water that is but indifferent. Here we breakfasted on ham and chickens, which we procured from the governor's houfe, fitted up for a temporary inn. The quality of the water we corrected with a little brandy. After having spent four hours on the Bafs, we defcended, and went next to Tantallan, the feat of the old Earls of Angus, and the strongest castle of the kind I ever faw. At the distance of a mile and a half, it ftands on the point of land nearest to the Bafs. Much of the caftle ftill remains, and I make no doubt that it will continue for many hundred years yet to come. It was provided with artillery by order of parliament in 1481. Without an order from the States, Umfraville Earl of Angus, refused to surrender his caftles in 1292 to Edward I. when he was to give his award. I fuppofe Tantallan was one of his castles. I do not recollect any mention of its ever being taken ; but as Dirleton is mentioned as being the first place that refifted Edward in his invafion of 1298, it is probable that it was taken at that time. In 1566, when the Earl of Morton, who was tutor of Angus during his nephew's minority, was fufpected of attachment to the lords in difgrace, it was taken poffeffion of by royal authority left they should fhelter themfelves there and in 1639 the Covenanters deftroyed it, because the Marquis of Douglas favoured the cause of King Charles. One of our hiftorians mentions cards being played at Tantallan more than two hundred years ago. We walked to North Berwick, and arrived in Edinburgh late at night, have feldom fpent our time and money more to our fatisfaction; and I recommend it to those who have a little of both to spare to make the fame excurfion. We had dined at W. Cochrane's of Gulane, and it is to his kind, eafy hospitality, that he is indebted for the patronage of this little work, if it is of value fufficient to create a debt. July, 1787. SEXTUS. On the Culture and Economical Ufes of the Spanish Broom. BJ TH HE Spanish broom (Spartium is already very copious, and where junceum, Lin.) grows natural- its large yellow flowers make it ly in the Southern provinces of confpicuous among other fhrubs. It France, but it fucceeds perfectly grows in the pooreft foils, and I well in the British gardens, where it had occafion to obferve it, and to Journal de Physique. remark On the Culture and Economical Ufes of the Spanish Broom. remark its economical ufes on the barren mountains that compofe the greater part of lower Languedoc, where it grows in abundance, and is cultivated by the natives, if the little care they bestow on this plant deferves the name of culture. It is fown on the most arid fpots, on the steepest declivities of the hills, in a ftony, foil where hardly any other plant could vegetate. In a few years it makes a vigorous fhrub: infinuating its roots between the interftices of the ftones, it binds the foil, and retains the small portion of vegetable earth scattered over thefe hills which the autumnal rains would otherwise wash away. It is fown in January, after the ground has received a flight dreffing. The quantity of feed varies in a given extent of foil; but it is fafeft to fow thick, as many feeds do not come up, and a number of the plants perish after they have fprung. It cannot be raised otherwife than by feed; when tranfplanted, it takes root again with difficulty, even in gardens where it is treated with care. But it yields abundance of feeds, which are fold cheap. A little space is left between each bufh, and thus the plants remain without culture for three years, for they are not fufficiently ftrong to furnish branches long enough for cutting. There are two uses to which this fhrub is applied. Its branches yield a thread of which they make linen; and in Winter they ferve for food to fheep and goats. In order to obtain the thread, the youngest plants are preferred. They are cut for this purpofe generally in the month of August, or after harvest. The branches are cut with a knife and gathered together in bundles, which are at firft laid in the fun to dry: they are then beat with a piece of wood, washed in a river or pond, and left 57 to fteep in the water for about four hours. The bundles thus prepared are taken to a little diftance from the water and laid in a hollow place made for them, where they are covered with fern or ftraw, and remain thus to steep for eight or nine days; during which time all that is neceffary is to throw a little water once a-day on the heap without uncovering the broom. After this, the bundles are well washed, the the green rind of the plant or epidermis comes off, and the fibrous part remains; each bundle is then beaten with a wooden hammer upon a ftone to detach all the threads, which are at the fame time carefully drawn to the extremity of the branches. After this operation the faggots are untied and fpread upon ftones or rocks till they are dry. The twigs must not be peeled till they are perfectly dry; they are then dreffed with the comb, and the threads are feparated according to their fineness, and spun upon a wheel. All this operation is referved for the dead feafon. The linen made of this thread ferves various purposes in rural economy. The coarfeft is employed in making facks and other ftrong cloths for carrying grain or feeds. Of the fineft is made bed, table, and body linen. The peasants in feveral places use no other, for they are unacquainted with the culture of hemp or flax, their foil being too dry and too barren for raising them. The cloth made with the thread of the broom is very useful; it is as foft as that made of hemp; and it would perhaps look as well as that made of flax if it was more carefully fpun. It becomes white in proportion as it is fteeped. The price of the fineft thread when it is fold, which feldom happens, is generally about a fhilling a pound. The talks, after the fibrous part has been peeled off, are tied together gether in fmall faggots, and fold for the kindling of fires: the faggot generally contifts of four. They alfo make matches of them, but these are not equal to thofe made of hemp, although they make a brifker fire. The fecond and principal use received from the culture of this broom, is its ferving for food in Winter to fheep and goats. These animals, from November to April, have hardly any other forage in the mountains of lower Languedoc than the leaves of trees preferved for the purpose. The branches of the broom are, therefore, a refource the more precious that it is the only fresh nourishment which at that feafon the flocks can procure, and they prefer it at all times to every other plant. In fine weather the fheep are led out to feed on the broom where it grows; but in bad weather the thepherds cut the branches and bring them to the fheep-folds. Sheep fed on this plant are fometimes fubject to a disease, the principal character of which is an inflammation of the urinary paffages; it proceeds from having eaten of the plant too abundantly, and may be prevented by mixing it with fome other. Sheep are particularly fubject to the difeafe when they have eaten the feeds of the broom; and therefore it is most prevalent when the plant is in fruit. The pernicious quality of the feeds is indicated by a heavy fmell, which exhales from them when in a heap. But these inconveniencies. may be easily prevented, and therefore fhould be no obstacle to the use of a plant fo valuable as this for the nourishment of theep; and efpecially as the cure of the difeafe is fimple, confifting merely in cooling drink, or a change of food. Sheep are not allowed to enter a frubbery of this broom the first nor the fecond year after it is fown; but they are permitted to brouze upon it after the third year. The ftumps that have been eaten at the extremities are cut off with a hook; and at the end of fix years it is neceffary to cut the ftock itfelf, that it may pufh out fresh fhoots. By this means the broom lasts a very long time, and furnishes pretty long branches every year. A fandy or ftony foil, as I have already obferved, agrees exceedingly well with this fhrub; and therefore the culture of it ought to be confidered as very beneficial, as it furnishes a means of turning to account the most barren and unprofitable spots where no other plant could profper. It may likewife be multiplied in particular inclosures, which may ferve in Winter as places for feeding deer or even rabbits. Wafte places that are fit for nothing elfe may be chofen for this purpose, efpecially as we fee that the culture of the fhrub is attended with little expence, and almost no trouble. The culture of the broom was formerly confined to a few villages about Lodeve, but is now extended over almost all the mountains of lower Languedoc. It is, perhaps, needlefs to fay that it differs much from the broom that is common every where in the North of Europe, though this too in many places is ufed for food to cattle. Doth of them produce flowers that are very much reforted to by bees, as they contain a deal of the honey juice they are fo fond of. And this fhould be another inducement to the cultivation of the Spanith Broom. On the State of the Arts and Sciences in Syria, and the Ignorance of the People. By M. Volney *. THE arts and manufactures in Syria are much lefs numerous than with us; they hardly amount to twenty, even including the moft neceffary. The religion of Mahomet having profcribed every image and figure, neither painting, nor fculpture, nor engraving, nor the variety of manufactures that depend on thefe are to be found. The Chriftians alone, for the use of their churches, fometimes buy a few pictures done at Conftantinople by the Greeks, who in matters of tafte are mere Turks. A great many of our arts are of no ufe here, on account of the fmall number of move. ables neceffary among the inhabitants of the Eaft. The whole furniture of a rich houfe confifts in carpets, mats, cushions, cotton cloths; difhes of copper or of wood for the table; fome copper pans, a mortar, a portable mill; fome china, and plates of tinned copper. All our All our equipage of bedfteads, hangings, chairs, arm-chairs, glaffes, cabinets, and fcrutoires; all our fide-board with its plate; and, in fhort, all our joinery furniture are totally unknown in the Eaft. Pocock imagined that the reafon of this fimplicity was to be found in the wandering life which these people anciently led; but fince the time when they became ftationary, they must have loft the memory of it; and the caufe is rather to be fought in the government, which allows nothing but what is frictly neceffary. Their cloathes are not more complicated, tho' much more expensive. They wear no hats, no perrukes, buttons, buckles, ftocks, laces, nor any of the trumpery that we are hampered with. Shirts of cotton or of filk, without wrift-bands, ruffles, or col lar, which even the Pachas do not reckon by dozens: enormous breeches, fo long as to ferve for stockings; a handkerchief for the head, and another for the girdle, with three great folds of cloth, make the whole wardrobe of the Orientals. The only arts for fuperfluities are thofe for the fabrication of trinkets to the women; cups for coffee, ornaments for horfes and for pipes; and, lastly, the manufactures of filk of Aleppo and Damafcus. In paffing through the ftreets of the towns, we fee nothing but a repetition of beaters of cotton, fellers of ftuffs and filks, barbers for fhaving the head, tin-fmiths, farriers, faddiers; and efpecially fellers of little cakes, hardware, feeds, dates, or fweatmeats; and very few butchers, who are always ill provided. There are alfo fome wretched gun-fmiths, who only mend old arms; not one of them can caft the barrel of a pistol; but the conftant occafion for powder has taught moft of the peafants to make it; and there is no public manufacture of it. In the villages, the inhabitants, reftricted to what is abfolutely ne. ceffary, have no arts but those it is impoffible to want. Each endeavours to fupply himself with what he has occafion for. Every family works the coarfe cotton cloth that is all their apparel, and every houfe has its portable mill, with which the miftrefs of it grinds the barley, or the doura, that make all their food. The meal of thefe mills is coarfe, and the little round thin cakes that are made of it unleavened and ill baked; but they support life, and that is all that is required. The inftruments of their husbandry are fimple and cheap. In the moun Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte. tainous tainous parts they do not prune the vine, nor graft the trees any where. Indeed, every thing resembles the fimplicity of early times, which, perhaps, were but times of rufticity and want. When we ask the reafon of this defect of industry, the only answer is, It is well enough, it is fufficient, what occafion is there for more? Undoubtedly, becaufe they would reap no advantage from improvement. The method of exercifing the arts in these countries offers this interefting confideration, that it almoft in every thing exhibits the operations of ancient times; for inftance, the ftuffs manufactured at Aleppo are not the invention of Arabians; they have received them of the Greeks, who no doubt, in their turn imitated them from those of the ancient people of the East. Their art of dying muft have been handed down to them from the Tyrians, for it is not unworthy of that people; but the workmen, jealous of their craft, make an impenetrable mystery of it. The manner in which the ancients fenced the harnefs of their horfes to make them proof against the cut of a fabre, must have been the fame with that now employed at Aleppo and Damafcus for bridles. The filver fcales with which the leather is covered are attached without the affiftance of nails, and are fo contrived, that, tho' the pliability of the leather is not in the least impaired, there is no interftice by which it can be hurt. The mortar they ufe is probably that of the Greeks and Romans. They employ the lime when quite hot, and mix with it a third part of fand, and another third of pounded brick. With this compofition they make wells, cifterns, and vaults, that are quite impervious to water. The manner of fufing iron must also be very ancient, confidering its great fimpli city: it is the method used in the Pyrenees, and known there by the name of Fonte Catalane. The forge confifts of a fort of chimney contrived in the fide of a funnel-fhaped earthen veffel. The cavity is filled with wood, and when it is kindled the bellows is applied to the hole at the bottom: the ore is put in at the top, and the metal falls to the bottom in maffes, whence it is extracted by the hole abovementioned. Even the wooden-grooved locks are as ancient as the days of Solomon, who mentions them in his Song. One cannot say so much for their music. It does not seem anterior to the age of the Kalifs, under whom the Arabs gave themfelves up to it with so much paffion, that all the learned men of that time never fail to add the title of Musician to those of Physician, Mathematician, and Aftronomer. However, the principles of their music having been borrowed from the Greeks, it can afford no curious obfervations to the skilful in that science. Eaft. Such are very rare in the Cairo is perhaps the only place in Egypt or Syria in which there are chaiks that understand the principles of their art. They have collections of airs which are not marked in our way, but written in characters with Perfian names. All their mufic is vocal; inftrumental mufic is in no eftimation with them; and juftly, for their inftruments, not even excepting their flutes,are detestable. They are acquainted with no accompanyments but the unifon and the continued bafs of the monochord. They are fond of finging in a high pitch, and in fo loud a tone, that no lungs but their own could fupport it for a quarter of an hour. Their airs, as to genius and execution, refemble nothing known in Europe cxcept the Spanish feguidillas. They have trills more laboured than thofe of the Italians, |