Chap. 37.] LADANUM AND STOBOLON. 133 



have stated that this substance is the fortuitous result of an ac- 

 cidental injury inflicted upon a certain odoriferous plant, under 

 the following circumstances : the goat, they say, which is in 

 general an animal that is extremely mischievous to foliage, is 

 particularly fond of the shrubs that are odoriferous, as if, in- 

 deed, it were really sensible of the value that is set upon 

 them. Hence it is that as the animal crops the sprouting 

 shoots of the branches which are swollen with a liquid juice 

 of remarkable sweetness, these juices drop and become min- 

 gled together, and are then wiped up by the shaggy hairs of 

 its unlucky beard. Being there mingled with the dust, these 

 juices form knots and tufts, and are then dried by the sun ; 

 and hence the circumstance is accounted for that in the lada- 

 num which is imported by us we find goats' hairs. This, 

 however, we are told, occurs nowhere but among the Naba- 

 tsei, 24 a people of Arabia, who border upon Syria. The more 

 recent writers call this substance by the name of stobolon, and 

 state that in the forests of Arabia the trees are broken by the 

 goats while browzing, and that the juices in consequence ad- 

 here to their shaggy hair ; but the genuine ladanum, they 

 assure us, comes from the island of Cyprus. I make mention of 

 this in order that every kind of odoriferous plant may be taken 

 some notice of, even though incidentally and not in the order 

 of their respetive localities. They say also that this Cyprian 

 ladanum is collected in the same manner as the other, and 

 that it forms a kind of greasy substance or oesypum, 25 which 

 adheres to the beards and shaggy legs of the goats ; but that 

 it is produced from the flowers of the ground-ivy, which they 

 have nibbled when in quest of their morning food, a time at 

 which the whole island is covered with dew. After this, they 

 say, when the fogs are dispersed by the sun, the dust adheres 

 to their wet coats, and the ladanum is formed, which is after- 

 wards taken off of them with a comb. 



There are some authors who give to the plant of Cyprus, 

 from which it is made, the name of leda ; and hence it is that 



soft to the fingers, the only adventitious substances in which are a little 

 sand and a few hairs. 



24 See B. vi. c. 32. 



23 For some further account of this substance, see B. xxix. c. 10. Filthy 

 as it was, the oesypum, or sweat and grease of sheep, was used by the 

 Roman ladies as one of their most choice cosmetics. Ovid, in his "Art of 

 Love," more than once inveighs against the use of it. 



