1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

349

The desire for It

was said to proceed

to the stomach.

PHny ^ speaks of a wine

from a pampered appetite.

made from sea water, but considers it,

with Celsus,

a bad stomachic.

In later times sea water has been

converted into fresh. Bory de St. Vincent,^ in his Essais sur les Isles For- tundes, an entertaining description of the archipelago of the Canaries, says that in Fer, one of the Canary Islands, a nearly total privation of running water was compensated by an extraordinary tree. Bacon (^Nov, Cornellle [Grand Diet., under Fer) may be consulted about this tree, called the holy one. Gonzalez d'Oviedo (11. 9) says it dist-ils water through its trunk, branches, and leaves^ which resemble so many fountains. The " exaggerator Jakson," says Bory de St. Vincent, being at Fer in 16 18, saw this tree dried up during the day, but at night yielding enough water to supply the thirst of 8,000 inhabitants and 100,000 other animals. According to this authority, it was distributed from time immemorial all over the island by pipes of lead. It is nothing to " Jakson " that lead was not known from time immemorial. Viana {Cant, i.) speaks of the sacred tree as a sort of celestial pump.' Abreu. Galuido says the holy tree was called Garoe, and that its fruit resembled an acorn, that its leaves were evergreen, and like those of a p. 220. ^ Other authorities concerning this remarkable drinking fountain are Nieremberg {Occult. Fhilos., ii. 350), Clavijo, Cairasio, and Dapper. Scient. Org., 412), the father Taillandier {Lettr. Edit, vii. 280), ^ Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxiii. 24. ^