ALOES. 41 



suggest the thought that the ships of Solomon wandered over 

 tracts of sea now hardly suspected of having been known in the 

 commerce of the ancients. Seamen passing the island can see 

 at a distance the spontaneous growth of the aloe, covering miles 

 of the western shores, with the beauty of their scarlet and 

 yellow flowers tipped with green and in brilliant contrast to 

 the deep green and glossy surface of the leaves. The extract 

 of the plant is mentioned as early as the time of our Lord, 

 and probably was known long before. It appears to have been 

 in use in the East and in India from a very early period. The 

 references in Scripture allude to its beauty and fragrance and 

 its use in embalming. It will be noticed how tent-like is the 

 form of the foliage, from which rises the spike or spear-like rod 

 crowned at the top with the flower-clusters. When Balaam 

 stood on the heights of the long chain of mountains east of 

 the Dead Sea and beheld the tents of Israel, his exclamation 

 was appropriate not only in view of the beauty, but of the 

 form. Balaam, whose residence was in Midian, about thirty 

 miles east of the Dead Sea, had often seen the aloe, which was 

 nearer its native soil in his own land and in Arabia than in 

 Palestine. But his words are significant of the beauty or rarity 

 of the plant, while its similarity to the tents of Israel is ex 

 pressed : &quot; Haw goodly are thy tents, Jacob, and thy taberna 

 cles, Israel ! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by 

 the river-side, as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, 

 and as cedar-trees beside the waters.&quot; (Numb. xxiv. 5-6.) First 

 is figuratively expressed the great extent, then the general ap 

 pearance of beauty, &quot;as gardens,&quot; and lastly the particular 



