Note C — III.

These olives which, when found, were still soft and pasty, had a rancid smell and a greasy but pungent flavor. The kernels were less elongated and more bulging than those of the Neapolitan olives; were very hard and still contained some shreds of their pith. In a word, they were perfectly preserved, and although eighteen centuries old, as they were, you would have thought they had been plucked but a few months before.