204 COSMOS. 



As the life of nations is, independently of mental culture, 

 determined by many external conditions of soil, climate, and 

 vicinity to the sea, we must here remember the great varie- 

 ties presented by the Arabian peninsula. Although the first 

 impulse toward the changes effected by the Arabs in the 

 three continents emanated from the Ismaelitish Hedschaz, and 

 owed its principal force to one sole race of herdsmen, the lit- 

 toral portions of the peninsula had continued for thousands of 

 years open to intercourse with the rest of the world. In or- 

 der to understand the connection and existence of great and 

 singular occurrences, it is necessary to ascend to the primitive * 

 causes by which they have been gradually prepared. 



Toward the southwest, on the Erythrean Sea, lies Yemen, 

 the ancient seat of civilization (of Saba), the beautiful, fruit- 

 ful, and richly-cultivated land of the Joctanidse.* It produced 

 incense (the lebormh of the Hebrews, perhaps the Boswellia 

 thurifera of Colebrooke),t myrrh (a species of Amyris, first ac- 



cluded a treaty with the patiiai'ch favorable to the Christians. {Fund' 

 gruben des Orietits, bd. v., s. 68.) 



** It would appear from tradition that a branch of the Hebrews mi- 

 grated to Southern Arabia, under the name of Jokthan (Qachthan), be- 

 fore the time of Abraham, and there founded flourishing kingcloms. 

 (Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, bd. i., s. 337 und 450.) 



t The tree which furnishes the Ax'abiau incense of Hadramaut, cele- 

 brated from the earliest times, and which is never to be found in the 

 island of Socotora, has not yet been discovered and determined by any 

 botanist, not even by the laborious investigator Ehrenberg. An article 

 similar to this incense is found in Eastern India, and particularly in 

 Buzidelcund, and is exported in considei-able quantities from Bombay 

 to China. This Indian incense is obtained, according to Colebrooke 

 (Asiatic Researches, vol. ix., p. 377), from a plant made known by Rox- 

 burgh, Boswellia thurifera or serrata (included in Kunth's family of Bur- 

 seracece). As, from the very ancient commercial connections between 

 the coasts of Southern Arabia and Western India (Gildemeister, Scrip- 

 torum Arabum Loci de Rebus Indicis, p. 35), doubts might be enter- 

 tained as to whether the /Itfiavof of Theophrastus (the thus of the Ro- 

 mans) belonged originally to the Arabian peninsula, Lassen's remark 

 (Indische Alterthumskunde, bd. i., s. 286), that incense is called "ya- 

 ■wana, Javanese, i. e., Arabian," in Amara-Koscha, itself becomes vei7 

 important, apparently implying that this product is brought to India 

 from Arabia. It is called Turuschka' pindakd' sihlo (three names sig- 

 nifying incense) " ydwano " in Amara-Koscha. {Amarakocha, publ. par 

 A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Part i., 1839, p. 156.) Dioscorides also 

 distinguishes Arabian from Indian incense. Carl Ritter, in his excel- 

 lent monograph on the kinds of incense (Asien, bd. viii., abth. i., s. 

 356-372,) remarks very justly, that, from the similarity of climate, this 

 species of plant {Boswellia thurifera) might be diSused from India 

 through the south of Persia to Arabia. The American incense ( Oliba- 

 num Americqnum of our Pharmacopoeias) is obtained from Idea guja' 

 nensis, Aubl., and Jcica iacamahaca, which Bonplaiid i\m\ nivselT tVe* 



