pFant Is ore, Iscgc^/, anel Isijric/". 453 



before had been childless, conceives, and nine months afterwards 

 gives to the world a daughter (Bakawali), beauteous as a fairy. 



MYROBALAN. — The Myrobalan Plum-tree produces a fruit 

 similar to a Cherry, but containing only a juice of so disagreeable a 

 flavour that the very birds refuse to feed upon it : the fruit, how- 

 ever, is much employed in Indian medicines. According to Hindu 

 tradition, the wife of Soma9arman struck twice with a wand a Myro- 

 balan-tree, whereupon the tree rose from the earth with her, and 

 carrying her away, at last placed her on a golden hill in a golden 

 town. 



MYRRH. — Myrrh is an exudation from the tree Balsaino- 

 dendron MyyyJia ; but the precious resin was held by the ancients to 

 have been first produced by the tears of Myrrha, daughter of Cinyras, 

 King of Cyprus, and mother of Adonis. Flying from the avenging 

 sword of her father, for whom she had conceived an incestuous 

 passion, the guilty Myrrha, after long and weary wanderings, 

 reached the Arabian continent, and at length, in the Sabaean fields, 

 overcome with fatigue and the misery of her situation, prayed with 

 her dying breath to the gods to accept her penitence and to bestow 

 upon her, as a punishment for her sin, a middle state " betwixt the 

 realms above and those below." " Some other form," cries she, 

 " to wretched Myrrha give, nor let her wholly die, nor wholly live." 



" The prayers of penitents are never vain; 

 At least she did her last request obtain. 

 For while she spake the ground began to rise 

 And gathered round her feet, her legs, and thighs ; 

 Her toes in roots descend, and, spreading wide, 

 A firm foundation for the trunk provide ; 

 Her solid bones convert to solid wood, 

 To pilh her marrow, and to sap her blood ; 

 Her arms are boughs, her fmgers change their kind, 

 Her tender skin is hardened into rind. 

 And now the rising tree her womb invests. 

 Now, shooting upwards still, invades her breasts 

 And shades her neck ; when, weary with delay. 

 She sunk her head within, and met it half the way. 

 And though with outvvaid shape she lost her sense, 

 With bitter tears she wept her last offence ; 

 And still she weeps, nor sheds her tears in vain, 

 For still the precious drops her name retain." — Dryden. 



Myrrh is one of the ingredients of the sacred ointment or oil of the 

 Jews, with which were anointed the Tabernacle, the Ark, the 

 altars, and the sacred vessels (Exodus xxx.") It was also used to 

 consecrate Aaron and his sons. The purification of women, as 

 ordained by the Jewish law, lasted one year; the first six months 

 being accomplished with oil of Myrrh, and the rest with other sweet 

 odours. After our Lord's death, Nicodemus brought a mixture 

 of Myrrh and Aloes, about an hundred pounds weight, that his 



body might be embalmed. Myrrh formed part of the celebrated 



Kiiphi of the Egyptians — a preparation used in fumigations and 



