AMBERGRIS—IDYLL 379 
nized. Lumps of ambergris would easily be mistaken for rocks, 
unless their weight or their soft texture betrayed them. 
Ambergris has been found over a large part of the world, but since 
the sperm whale is, generally speaking, a warm and temperate-water 
animal, most of the finds have been in the middle latitudes. The 
Bahamas, Brazil, Africa, Japan, Australia, the East Indies, Peru, 
Madagascar, and the Moluccas are the sources mentioned most 
frequently. 
When ambergris emerges from the whale’s intestine it is dark, 
almost black in color, of a sticky, bituminous nature. It stinks 
abominably, but as it spends more and more time in the water (floating 
on the surface owing to its low specific gravity), it gradually improves 
in odor and lightens in color. When found, the color is usually pale 
golden to dark brown, with the oldest lumps being chalky white. 
The latter are the most valuable. 
From the fetid odor of the fresh material, ambergris changes 
progressively to a fishy smell, then to a sweetish musty odor reminiscent 
of the sea. Many curious adjectives have been applied to the odor 
of ambergris: “earthy, reminiscent of brazil nuts,” “musky,” “a light 
sea odor,” “an indole odor of the fecal type,” “a moist incense odor.” 
STRANGE AND ROMANTIC USES 
The uses to which ambergris has been put are as strange and ro- 
mantic as its real and imaginary origins. One modern use, at least 
in the Western world, is in the manufacture of perfume, but this was 
not alwaysso. Formerly, it found its way into food, drink, medicines, 
and tobacco. Its widest use was as an aphrodisiac. Just how this 
dingy-looking material came to be credited with the power of height- 
ening erotic desire is a mystery, and the man who first summoned 
enough courage to eat ambergris deserves to be remembered with that 
unknown hero who ate the first raw oyster. Whoever this worthy 
was, he soon had plenty of followers. 
In the middle of the 17th century Sir John Chardin wrote that 
the Persians used musk and ambergris in abundance in several sorts of 
their sweetmeats and confections—the one (musk) only to fortify or 
strengthen, the other (ambergris) to stir up love, and which the people 
of condition seldom failed to eat both before and after meals. It was 
especially valued by the Chinese, who as early as the 13th century, used 
to send as far as the east coast of Africa to get it, together with gold 
and ivory. They called it “lung yen,” or dragon’s saliva. 
Ambergris was credited in India with power to assist women suffer- 
ing from complications of childbirth, while the Chinese believed it 
assisted in the growth of marrow and semen. Several oriental peoples 
believed that it extended the span of life. 
