422 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



the ingredients used in ftimigations, and is considered 

 to be efficacious in promoting a healthy state of the 

 mouth : for this latter purpose it is held in much 

 esteem by the Turks, Greeks, and all the people of 

 the Levant, who constantly chew it. Hence it takes 

 its name ; mastic being derived from masticare, to 

 masticate. The women of Scio, Smyrna, and Con- 

 stantinople have almost always a piece of it in their 

 mouths. 



This is the most celebrated production of the 

 island of Scio, and of so much importance is it con- 

 sidered there, that the inhabitants of the villages that 

 furnish it, had, when under their Turkish masters, 

 many peculiar privileges. They acknowledged no 

 other chief than the aga or lord who farmed that pro- 

 duction ; they were exempt from contributing their 

 labour gratuitously on public occasions, being obliged 

 only to convey the mastic to the town, and to fur- 

 nish beasts of burden to this aga when he travelled 

 about the villages in order to collect it. " We had 

 an opportunity," says M. Olivier, " of seeing the aga 

 on his tour, preceded by military music, followed by 

 several tchocadars, and surrounded by a greater num- 

 ber of villagers, eager to attend on him. Had we not 

 been previously informed, we should much rather 

 have taken him for a military commander than a 

 simple farmer of taxes *." 



The tree which produces the mastic is the Lentisk, 

 or Pistacia lentiscus. It usually grows to about 

 the height of twelve or fifteen feet. It is more like 

 a shrub than a tree, scarcely acquiring seven or eight 

 inches in diameter. The leaves are composed of two 

 or three pair of spear-shaped lobes, and terminated 

 by a single one : the outer lobes are the largest, the 

 others gradually diminish in size. It is an evergreen, 

 but the leaves lose their bright verdant look towards 

 * Olivier's Travels in the Ottoman Empire, chap, vi. 



