380 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



Divine power. As for local traditions or modern practices, 

 these, we have already shown, are unsafe guides in matters 

 of history ; much less can they be admitted as authorities in 

 support of revealed truth. 



Gum-Arabic. — According to Burckhardt this substance is 

 the produce of the talh, which he calls the gum-arabic-tree'. 

 In describing Wady Lahyane, between Akaba and Gaza, he 

 pays that the Bedouins feed their camels upon the thorny 

 branches of this shrub, of which they are extremely fond. 

 In summer they collect the gum, which they sell at Cairo for 

 about 125. or \bs. per cwt. The taste he represents as in- 

 sipid, but he was assured it was very nutritive. Of this lat- 

 ter fact Hasselquist mentions a strildng confirmation, in the 

 case of an Abyssinian caravan crossing the African desert to 

 Cairo in 1750. Finding their provisions consumed while 

 thev had yet sixty days to travel, they had recourse to gum- 

 arabic, of which they carried a considerable quantity with 

 them ; and upon this alone 1000 persons subsisted for two 

 months. Burckhardt, however, in another place says, that 

 in Wadv Nebk he found the acacia-trees thicklv covered 

 with this gum, which the Towara tribe sell at Cairo, though 

 its quality is inferior to that from Sennaar or Soudan. The 

 Bedouins use it as a substitute for water. Some have sup- 

 posed the gum-arabic-tree to be the Acacia vera (the Mi^ 

 mosa Nilolica, Linn.), which Hasselquist says the Egyptian 

 Arabs call charrad (perhaps the gharrab of Burckhardt), and 

 which he represents' as also producing the thus or frankin^ 

 cense, and the Succus acacice. The thus he describes as 

 pellucid and white, or rather colourless ; while the gum is of 

 a brownish or dirt}"" yellow. This exactly agrees with the 

 accounts given of the manna ; hence it is probable these 

 substances are nearlv, if not altogether, identical. In col- 

 lecting the leaves of the acacia for the use of their camels, 

 the Bedouins spread a straw mat under the tree, and beat 

 the boughs with long sticks, when the youngest and freshest 

 buds are broucrht down ; and these are sold in the markets 

 as fodder. 



Honey is an article much used in Arabian cookery, and 

 found in various districts of the country. The mountains 

 near Safra swarm with bees, of which the Bedouins take pos- 

 session by placing wooden hives upon the ground. This 

 honey is of the fine.'^t quality, white, and clear as water. One 



