Those to the northward of Mount Atlas are not very hurtful; for the sting, being only attended with a slight fever, the application of a little Venice treacle quickly assuages the pain. But the scorpions of Gætulia, and most other parts of the Sahara, as they are generally larger, and of a darker complexion, so their venom is proportionably malignant, and frequently attended with death. I had once sent me a female scorpion, which, as it is a viviparous animal, had just brought forth her young, about twenty in number, each of them scarce so large as a grain of barley.

Of the same virulent nature with the scorpion, is the bite of the boola-kaz; a phalangium of the Sahara, the rhax probably which Ælian* observes to be an animal of these parts. It is computed that twenty or thirty persons die every year by the hurt received from this animal and the leffah.

The method of curing the bite or sting of these venomous creatures, is either immediately to burn, or to make a deep incision upon the wounded part, or else to cut out the contiguous flesh. Sometimes also the patient lies buried all over, excepting his head, in the hot burning sands, or else in pits dug and heated for the purpose; order, no doubt, to obtain the like copious per

in

spiration

πληθος, μεγέθει δε επτα σφονδύλων. Strab. 1. xvii. Και πε επτα έχον opordvaus woon Tis. Ælian. Hist. Anim. 1. vi. c. 20.

* Lib. iii. c. 136.

spiration that is excited by dancing* in those that are bitten by the tarantula. But when no great danger is apprehended, then they apply hot ashes only, or the powder of alhenna, with two or three thin slices of an onion, by way of cataplasm. I never heard that oil olive, which they have always at hand, was ever made use of; which, being rubbed warm upon the wound, has been lately accounted a specific remedy, particularly against the bite of the viper. It was one † of the twenty remarkable edicts that were given out by the emperor Claudius in one day, that no other remedy should be used in the bite of a viper, than the juice of the yew tree or taxus,

SEC

* Matthiolus, in his Annotations upon Dioscorides, 1. ii. c. 77. de Araneo, vouches for the fact, and acquaints us that he had seen it: quod equidem attestari possum. The following air, called the tarentella, is one of those which the Apulians are said to make use of on these occasions,

早睡

+ Vid. Seut. in Claudio.

348

SECTION VII.

Of the Fish.

THERE are few species of fish to be met with in these seas or rivers, but what have been long ago described by Rondeletius, and still continue to be taken as well on this as on the other side of the Mediterranean; a catalogue of which is placed among the Collectanea. To these we may add a firm and well tasted barbel, which, with the eel, is common to most of those rivers. The barbel has two appendages on the lower jaw. In the warm fountain at Capsa, we find a beautiful little perch, with chequered fins, and a turned up nose; but this is a coarse fish, of no delicate flavour, though we may consider it as a curiosity, in living so far from the sea, and in being, as far as I could be informed, the only fish appertaining to the many rivulets of these inland parts of Africa. The fishermen find sometimes, in drawing and clearing their nets, the penna marina or seafeather; which, in the night time particularly, is so remarkably glowing and luminous, as to afford light enough to discover the quantity and size of the fish that are inclosed along with it in the same net. I have seen more than once, large shoals of a small circular flat polypus, with a thin semicircular ridge obliquely crossing the back of it. This, which is the urtica marina soluta, and

the

the veletta of F. Columna, is hung all over with little feet or suckers, and is greedily pursued by the tunny and porpoise. A few years ago, an orca, or toothed whale, sixty feet long, was stranded under the walls of Algiers; which was looked upon as so extraordinary an appearance, that the Algerines were apprehensive it portended some direful event to their polity and govern

ment.

Among the fish that are called crustaceous, the first place is to be given to the lobster, though it is in no great plenty upon the coast of Barbary; whereas shrimps and prawns, a small thin-shelled crab, like the broad-footed one of Rondeletius, the locusta, vulgarly called the long oyster, together with the squilla lata, or sea cray-fish of the same author, are every day brought to the market. These are preferred to the lobster for firmness and elegancy of taste.

The echini, or sea eggs, are more remarkable for their number than their variety. I have seen no more than three species; one of which is of the pentaphylloid or spatagus kind, being very beautiful to look upon, but of no use. Each of the others has five sutures, accompanied with several concentric rows of little knobs, supporting So many prickles or aculei. The roe, which lies in the inside of them, between the sutures, and is the only part that is eatable, is turgid and in perfection about the full of the moon. After beng tempered and seasoned with pepper and vine

VOL. I.

2z

gar,

gar, it is looked upon as no small dainty; of which I have often tasted.

Neither is there any great plenty or variety of shell-fish, as will appear from the catalogue of them, which is inserted among the Collectanea. The exuviæ, indeed, of a few species of whilks and flithers, of the sea-ear, of the spondylus, and of a smooth shallow chama, are what we commonly see lying upon the shore; whilst the greater whilk or buccinum, eight or ten inches long; a long narrow pectunculus; the muscle of Matthiolus; the concha Veneris; a large thin ampullaceous whilk, the 18th species of Lister; with the long-nosed muricated one, the 20th of the same author, may be reckoned among the rarities. But the solitanna, which, as Varro tells us, (l. xiii. c. 14. De re Rustica), contained twelve gallons, would be undoubtedly the greatest curiosity, and the very princess of the testaceous kind, provided it still continued to be a native of these seas.

Tunis was formerly well supplied with oysters, from the haven of Bizerta; but, when I was there, some copious rains*, with the usual tor rents consequent thereupon, which fell into it from the neighbouring lake, were supposed, by

making

Nimirum tenuitas aquæ non sufficit eorum respirationi.Atque eadem causa est, quod in Ponto, cujus oræ crebris fluminum ostiis alluuntur, non sunt testacea, nisi quibusdam in locis pauca---Etiam in æstuariis Venetis observatur testacea interire, quando immodicis pluviis palustris salsedo diluitur. J. Grand. de Verit. diluvii, &c. p. 66. C. Langii Method. Testac. p. 7. in præfat.