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In Egypt and the East: Arabia

Arabia, with her wonderful "Nights," her gardens full of flowers, and her ever-recurring references to "sweet-meats," was well acquainted with the bee and made much use of its honey, but scant praise does the honey-maker itself receive from the chroniclers of that land of delights, - the home of Aladdin and the Afrits.

The murmur of the bee does not make musical the literature of Arabia. Where references occur they are almost In Egypt and the East always to the honey instead of to the bee, and are usually in a moralizing rather than a poetical vein, as in the following we are informed that - "He falls more easily than flies fall into honey; " and again: "The lazy is not fed on honey." ing The following, though more elaborate, is equally moraliz- : - "Nor want, nor weakness still conspires To bind us to a sordid state; The fly that with a touch expires Sips honey from the royal plate."

In the "Assemblies of Al Harîri" we read the following description of a false friend given by the queer old reprobate philosopher, Abû Zayd: - "I had a neighbor whose tongue cajoled, while his heart was a scorpion; whose speech was a honey-comb to refresh, while his hidden thought was a concentrated venom."

In Firdusi's "Epic of Kings," where Zal, the king's son, falls in love with Rudabeh, daughter of the accursed Serpent race, we learn that the attendants did not dare speak, "For there was none of them that listed to mingle poison in the honey of this love."