MYRRH. 167 



absolutely like that of the acacia vera; and among the leaves I often 

 met with a small straight weak thorn, about two inches long. These 

 were all the circumstances I could combine, relative to the myrrh 

 tree, too vague and uncertain to risk a drawing on, when there still 

 remained so many desiderata concerning it ; and as the king was 

 obstinate not to let me go thither, after what had happened to the 

 surgeon, mate, and boat's crew of the Elgin Indiaman, I was 

 obliged to abandon the drawing of the myrrh-tree to some more 

 fortunate traveller. At the same time that I was taking these pains 

 about the myrrh, I had desired the savages to bring me all the gums 

 they could find, with the branches and bark of the trees that pro- 

 duced them. They brought me, at different times, some very fine 

 pieces of incense, and at another time, a very small quantity of a 

 bright colourless gum, sweeter on burning than incense ; but no 

 branches of either tree, though I found this latter afterwards, in 

 another part of Abyssinia. But at all times they brought me 

 quantities of gum, of an even and close grain, and of a dark brown 

 colour, which was produced by a tree called sassa; and twice I 

 received branches of this tree in tolerable order; and of these 1 

 made a drawing. Some weeks after, walking in a Mahometan vil- 

 lage, I saw a large tree, with the whole upper part of the trunk and 

 the large branches so covered with great bosses and knobs o r gum, 

 as to appear monstrous ; and asking further about the tree, I found 

 that it had been brought, many years before, from the myrrh 

 country by merchants, and planted there for the sake of its gum, 

 with which these Mahometans stiffened the blue Surat cloths, which 

 they got damaged from Mocha, to trade in with the Galla and 

 Abyssinians. Neither the tree which they called sassa, nor the 

 name, nor the gum, could allow me to doubt a moment that it was 

 the same as what had been brought to me from the myrrh country ; 

 but I had the additional satisfaction to find the tree all covered 

 over with beautiful crimson flowers, of a very extraordinary and 

 strange construction. I began then a drawing anew, with ai! that 

 satisfaction known only to those who have been conversant in such 

 discoveries. I took pieces of the gum with me. It is very light. 

 Galen complains that, in his time, the myrrh was often mixed with 

 a drug which he calls opocalpasum, by a Greek name ; but what 

 this drug was, is totally unknown to us at this day. But as the only 

 view of the savage, in mixing another gum with his myrrh, mrlst 



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