Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers Samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.

_King Lear_, act iv, sc. 6 (14).

Being found only on rocks, the Samphire was naturally associated with
St. Peter, and so it was called in Italian Herba di San Pietro, in
English Sampire and Rock Sampier[274:1]--in other words, Samphire is
simply a corruption of Saint Peter. The plant grows round all the coasts
of Great Britain and Ireland, wherever there are suitable rocks on which
it can grow, and on all the coasts of Europe, except the northern
coasts; and it is a plant very easily recognized, if not by its
pale-green, fleshy leaves, yet certainly by its taste, or its "smell
delightful and pleasant." The leaves form the pickle, "the pleasantest
sauce, most familiar, and best agreeing with man's body," but now much
out of fashion. In Shakespeare's time the gathering of Samphire was a
regular trade, and Steevens quotes from Smith's "History of Waterford"
to show the danger attending the trade: "It is terrible to see how
people gather it, hanging by a rope several fathoms from the top of the
impending rocks, as it were in the air." In our own time the quantity
required could be easily got without much danger, for it grows in places
perfectly accessible in sufficient quantity for the present
requirements, for in some parts it grows away from the cliffs, so that
"the fields about Porth Gwylan, in Carnarvonshire, are covered with
it." It may even be grown in the garden, especially in gardens near the
sea, and makes a pretty plant for rockwork.

There is a story connected with the Samphire which shows how botanical
knowledge, like all other knowledge, may be of great service, even where
least expected. Many years ago a ship was wrecked on the Sussex coast,
and a small party were left on a rock not far from land. To their horror
they found the sea rising higher and higher, and threatening before long
to cover their place of refuge. Some of them proposed to try and swim
for land, and would have done so, but just as they were preparing for it
an officer saw a plant of Samphire growing on the rock, and told them
they might stay and trust to that little plant that the sea would rise
no further, for that the Samphire, though always growing within the
spray of the sea, never grows where the sea could actually touch it.
They believed him and were saved.

FOOTNOTES:

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