156 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



position of niyrrh and some other ingredient, not a species of Abys- 

 sinian myrrh, which he could never have seen, either soft or green. 

 It may be remarked, that when we buy fresh or new myrrh, it has 

 always a very strong, rancid, oily smell j and when thrown into 

 water, globules of an oily matter swim upon the surface. This 

 greasiness is not from the myrrh ; it is owing to the savages using 

 goat-skins anointed with butter, to make them supple, in which to 

 put their myrrh at gathering ; and in these skins it remains, and is 

 brought to market : so that, far from its being a fault, as some ig- 

 norant druggists at Rome and Venice believe, it is a mark that the 

 myrrh is fresh gathered, which is the best quality that myrrh of the 

 iirst sort can have. Besides, far from injuring the myrrh, this oily 

 covering must rather at first have been of service ; as it certainly 

 imprisons and confines the volatile parts of new myrrh, which escape 

 in great quantities, to a very considerable diminution in the weight. 

 The piece of myrrh which I send you is what a fine tree, less than 

 fifteen inches diameter in the trunk at the bottom, wounded in two 

 places, produced at one of the wounds in the year 1771* And it 

 may be regarded as the only unexceptionable and authentic evidence 

 in Europe, of what the Troglodyte myrrh was ; unless it be those 

 pieces still remaining in my collection, and a piece, somewhat 

 smaller than yours, which I gave to the king of France's cabinet at 

 Paris. This piece which I send you, had lost near six drachms 

 Troy of its weight, between the 27th of August, 1771, and the 

 29th of June, 1773. It has lost a very few grains since. It was 

 kept, as were all the other pieces, with great care in cotton, sepa- 

 rately in a box, to prevent its losing weight by friction. 



Opocalpasum* At the time when I was on the borders of the 

 TalTal, or Troglodyte country, I sought to procure myself 

 branches and bark of the myrrh tree, enough preserved to be able 

 to draw it ; but the length and ruggedness of the way, the heat of 

 the weather, and the carelessness and want of resources of naked 

 savages, always disappointed me. In those goat-skin bags into 

 which I had ^often ordered them to put small branches, I always 

 found the leaves mostly in powder; some few that were entire, 

 seemed to resemble much the acacia vera, but were wider towards 

 the extremity, and more pointed immediately at the end. In what 

 order the leaves grew I never could determine. The bark wa* 



