136 PLINY'S NATUBAL HISTORY. [Book XII. 



to the floor ; it is very agreeable, but is apt to cause an 

 oppression of the head, though unattended with pain ; it is 

 used for promoting sleep in persons when ill. For these 

 branches of commerce, they have opened the city of Carrse, 33 

 which serves as an entrepot, and from which place they were 

 formerly in the habit of proceeding to Gabba, at a distance of 

 twenty days' journey, and thence to Palsestina, in Syria. But 

 at a later period, as Juba informs us, they began to take the 

 road, for the purposes of this traffic, to Charax 34 and the 

 kingdom of the Parthians. For my own part, it would appear 

 to me that they were in the habit of importing these commo- 

 dities among the Persians, even before they began to convey 

 them to Syria or Egypt ; at least Herodotus bears testimony to 

 that effect, when he states that the Arabians paid a yearly 

 tribute of one thousand talents, in frankincense, to the kings 

 of Persia. 



From Syria they bring back storax, 35 which, burnt upon 

 the hearth, by its powerful smell dispels that loathing of their 

 own perfumes with which these people are affected. For in 

 general there are no kinds of wood in use among them, except 

 those which are odoriferous; indeed, the Sabsei are in the 

 habit of cooking their food with incense wood, while others, 

 again, employ that of the myrrh tree ; and hence, the smoke 

 and smells that pervade their cities and villages are no other 

 than the very same which, with us, proceed from the altars. 

 For the purpose of qualifying this powerful smell, they burn 

 storax in goat-skins, and so fumigate their dwellings. So true 

 it is, that there is no pleasure to be found, but what the con- 

 tinual enjoyment of it begets loathing. They also burn this 

 substance to drive away the serpents, which are extremely 

 numerous in the forests which bear the odoriferous trees. 



CHAP. 41. (18.) WHY AKABIA WAS CALLED " HAPPY." 



Arabia produces neither cinnamon nor cassia; and this is 

 the country styled " Happy" Arabia! False and ungrateful 

 does she prove herself in the adoption of this surname, which 

 she would imply to have been received from the gods above ; 

 whereas, in reality, she is indebted for it far more to the gods 



33 See B. v. c. 21. 3i See B. vi. c. 30. 



85 See c. 55 of the present Book. 



