164 JOURNEY FROM with the tents of the Arabs who inhabit the place, give an appearance of cheerfulness and comfort to the scene which contrast renders doubly agreeable.

The water which is found here, and which is excellent and plentiful, contributes at the same time in no small degree to increase the attractions of the place ; and though the claims of Zaffran might be humble, were it placed in a more favoured country, we may venture to affirm that no traveller who reaches it will ever be disposed to analyze too minutely its pretensions to actual beauty.

Zaffran is a place of some note in the district of Syrt ; it affords excellent pasturage, and furnishes large supplies of corn, wool, and manteca. The name which it bears would lead us to imagine that this place has been originally famous for its saffron ; Zaffran is the Arab term by which that plant is distinguished, and we know that the northern coast of Africa has been noted for the excellence of the saffron which it produced*. We could not, however, perceive any traces of the plant properly so called ; but the whole neighbourhood of Zaffran is overspread with a species of crocus from which saffron might very possibly be extracted.

The best saffron of our own times is that which is made from the crocus, by selecting the pistils and carefully drying them in a kiln ; and the colour of the plant which we saw was well calculated to suggest the idea that it might be usefully employed in a similar way : it is a bulb, with a flower somewhat larger than the crocus, and The saffron of the Gharian mountains has been described by Leo Africanus as the best in the world.