SUBSTANCES USED AS INCENSE IN THE EAST. 407 



piles of wealthy Hindus, aud even comparatively poor people will 

 expend as much as 40 to 50 rupees worth at a funeral. In China it 

 is burnt as an incense, and the Parsees also burn it. There would 

 appear to be no evidence of its ever having found much favour as an 

 incense in the West, which is strange, as it was known to the 

 Romaus in the first century of our era. A false sandal wood is im- 

 ported into Bombay from Zanzibar, of which I show you a sample : 

 it is used as a substitute for the true article. Several kinds of false 

 sandal are also in use in China. 



Common camphor is used as an incense in India, especially in per- 

 forming the arthi ceremony already mentioned; whilst the expensive 

 Borneo camphor is largely used at the funeral rites of the Batta 

 princes, whose families are often ruined by the lavish expense of 

 providing the camphor and buffaloes which the custom of their 

 obsequies requires. In Western India it is used in small quantities 

 by the Jains, and costs from 80 to 100 rupees per maund. 



The Cinnamon and Cassia of the ancients appears to have been 

 used as incense, as we find Cassia turiana mentioned as a substance 

 upon which duty was levied at the Roman custom-house at Alexan- 

 dria, A.D. 176-80; and a thick kind of cinnamon bark, called 

 Pisin-puttai or Piskoo-puttai in Tamil, is still used in India 'for this 

 purpose. It has a delicious fragrance, but hardly any cinnamon 

 flavour. Mr. Hooper informs me that it is ground to a powder, 

 mixed with water, smeared on reeds, and dried. The reeds are 

 burnt at Mahometan festivals. There is a thick variety of Cassia 

 which fetches about 56 shillings a pound in China : possibly it may 

 be the same article. 



The wood of Cedrus Dcodara, the Deodar ivood of the bazars, 

 contains a large quantity of a very fragrant turpentine, and is much 

 used all over India in making pastiles. Pinus longifoliais the Sarala 

 of Sanskrit writers, who call the turpentine obtained from it Sarala- 

 drava ; it does not resemble our turpentine, but has the colour and 

 consistence of ghi. Popularly it is known as Ghir-pine oil or Gan- 

 dha-biroja. 



The roots of Jurinea macro cephala, a composite plant common in 

 the Western Himalaya, are used locally as incense (dhnpa). Dr. 

 Stewart records that seven maunds from Bissahir were exposed 



