Chap. 32.] VAEIOUS KINDS OF FRANKINCENSE. 1 2/ 



plunder his neighbour. But, by Hercules ! at Alexandria, 

 where the incense is dressed for sale, the workshops can never 

 be guarded with sufficient care ; a seal is even placed upon the 

 workmen's aprons, and a mask put upon the head, or else a 

 net with very close meshes, while the people are stripped 

 naked before they are allowed to leave work. So true it is 

 that punishments afford less security among us than is to be 

 found by these Arabians amid their woods and forests ! The 

 incense which has accumulated during the summer is gathered 

 in the autumn : it is the purest of all, and is of a white colour. 

 The second gathering takes place in spring, incisions being 

 made in the bark for that purpose during the winter : this, 

 however, is of a red colour, and not to be compared with the 

 other incense. The first, or superior kind of incense, is known 

 as carnathum," the latter is called dathiathum. It is thought, 

 also, that the incense which is gathered from the tree while 

 young is the whitest, though the produce of the old trees has 

 the most powerful smell ; some persons, too, have an impres- 

 sion that the best incense is found in the islands, but Juba 

 asserts that no incense at all is grown there. 



That incense which has hung suspended in globular drops is 

 known to us as "male" frankincense, although it is mostly 

 the case that we do not use the term " male" except in con- 

 tradistinction to the word "female:" it has been attributed, 

 however, to religious scruples, that the name of the other sex 

 was not employed as a denomination for this substance. Some 

 persons, again, are of opinion that the male frankincense has 

 been so called from its resemblance 1 to the testes of the male. 

 The incense, however, that is the most esteemed of all is that 

 which is mammose, or breast-shaped, and is produced when 

 one drop has stopped short, and another, following close upon 

 it, has adhered, and united with it. I find it stated that one 

 of these lumps used to make quite a handful, at a time when 

 men displayed less eagerness to gather it, and it was allowed 

 more time to accumulate. The Greeks call such lumps as 



99 These words are said by some to be derived from the Greek, Kaptybg, 

 " a hollow stalk," on account of its lightness, and SpSiov, " a torch," on 

 account of its resinous and inflammable qualities. It is, however, much 

 more probable that they were derived from the Arabic, and not from the 

 Celto-Scythic, as Poinsinet conjectures. 



1 Fee is probably right in his conjecture, that it was so called solely in 

 consequence of its superior strength. 



