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It was customary in eastern climates, and especially in the sultry season, to carry, when journeying, supplies of snow. These æstivæ nives (as Mamertinus styles them) being put into separate vases, were, by that means, better kept from the air, as no more was opened at once than might suffice for immediate use. To preserve the whole from solution, the vessels that contained it were secured in packages of straw. Gesta Dei, p. 1098.—Vathek's ancestor, the, in the pilgrimage to Mecca, which he undertook from ostentation rather than devotion, loaded upon camels so prodigious a quantity as was not only sufficient for himself and his attendants, amidst the burning sands of Arabia; but, also, to preserve, in their natural freshness, the various fruits he took with him, and to ice all their drink whilst he staid at Mecca: the greater part of whose inhabitants had never seen snow till then. Anecdotes Arabes, p. 326.

This mountain, which, in reality, is no other than Caucasus, was supposed to surround the