*12 Mr. Drunimond Hay on certain 



more frequented in the time of the Jubas, and for ages before 

 and after them, than they are now; and the stream of which 

 we have been speaking, with others in the vicinity, would af- 

 ford a facility for floating the timber to the sea. 



My Reefian adds, that they have in his province in great 

 number the large tree which, he says, they call Laris, and of 

 which much fine timber is brought, not only from Reef, but 

 from, I believe, all the higher Sierras of Marocco. It is some- 

 times of a delicate texture, generally I think of a dusky yel- 

 lowish colour, and gives out an agreeable aromatic odour: it 

 is rather soft, like some species of Pine, and easily worked. 

 My servant describes this tree as having various characteristics 

 of some of the Pine genus. 



It seems as if the vulgar name Laris were a corruption of 



Al Aris or AlArs $\ , which is in the Hebrew named Htt 



- . JJ . '"' 



(pronounced Aris), which Golius translates " Arbor conifera, 



nempe Cedrus, Pinus, Picea," and adds, " usurpatur quoque 



pro j£. t £. ar ar, Juniperus." Our Reefian says that his Laris 



bears a cone or pine. 



I have been led to mention this tree, because seeing doubts 

 expressed by the commentators on Pliny (lib.xvi. cap. ] 9.) with 

 regard to the name Larix, the ttsvxy} of Theophrastus, I fancy 

 those interested in botanical nomenclature may discover in 

 the name used not only by the Arabs, but in the language of 

 the Brebers, the most antique race known in Marocco, a clue 

 to extricate them from the difficulties of the scholiasts. I may 

 note that the Cedar of Lebanon is named fHft aris by the 



Hebrews, in numerous passages of the Bible. See, among 

 others, 1 Kings, v. 6., where the wood used for the Temple of 

 Solomon is spoken of; and (xix. 6.) in the Book of Numbers 

 (written, I suppose, many ages before that of Kings), I find the 

 same wood used in ceremonies of religion ; wherefore I con- 

 clude, the aris was an odoriferous wood like the Cedar, as is 

 the L'aris of Marocco. This name pttf is translated by Abra- 

 ham Mendes de Castro in his curious Spanish version (pub- 

 lished with the Hebrew) sometimes, as in the First Book of 

 Kings, v. 6., of our version (which he makes the 20th verse 

 of the same chapter), alarzes ; and in another place (the next 

 chapter, vi. 16.) cedros. Alarze is the same as the modern 

 Spanish word Alcrce, corrupted evidently, as Canes agrees, 

 from the Arabic; and which the Spanish academicians de- 



