384 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



perfume in the same manner as they do the kafal, another 

 sort of Amyris, which is exported to Egypt, and there used 

 as fuel, to communicate an agreeable odour to the vessek and 

 the liquors which are boiled in them. 



Gharkad (the Peganum retusum of Forskal), a thorny 

 shrub, bearing a small red berry about the size of a pome- 

 granate-seed, is common in the peninsula of Sinai, especially 

 in Wady Gharendel. It comes to maturity in the height of 

 summer, and surprises the traveller by the delicious refresh- 

 ment which it affords in the parched and solitary wilderness. 

 The fruit is juicy and pleasant, much resembling a ripe 

 gooseberr\' in taste, but not so sweet ; and when the crop 

 is abundant, the Arabs make a conserve of the berries. This 

 is the shrub which Burckhardt supposes might have been 

 used by Moses to sweeten the bitter waters of Marah (Exod. 

 XV. 25) ; but as he made no inquiries on the spot, his sup- 

 position rests on mere conjecture. 



Another shrub, of high celebrity in the East as an article 

 for the toilette, is the henna-tree {Lawsoniaiyicrmia, Linn.), 

 whose leaves and odoriferous flowers, when pulverized and 

 wrought into a paste, are universally used by the ladies for 

 staining the face, hands, feet, and nails, of a reddish or yel- 

 lowish colour ; lighter or deeper according to the manner in 

 which this fashionable pomatum is applied. The tincture 

 requires to be frequently renewed. This shrub, which in 

 size and character resembles privec, is \exy abundant in 

 Wady Fatima, and sold to the hajjis at Mecca in small red 

 leathern bags. A species of Glycyrrhiza. or liquorice-shrub, 

 is common in Yemen, as is also a sort of caper-tree (Cap- 

 paris spitiosa, Linn.), which is reckoned the only antidote 

 against the effects of a shrub (called Aderiia by Forskal), 

 whose buds, when dried and given in drink as a powder, are 

 strongly poisonous. Tlie rose-laurel {Nerium), the cotton- 

 plant, the acacia, and various others, spring in the sandy 

 plains, and form scattered tufts of verdure in the cliffs of the 

 barren rocks. The acacia being one of the largest and most 

 common shrubs in the desert, Shaw conjectures that it must 

 have been the shithm-icood of which the planks and several 

 utensils of the tabernacle were made. Exod. xxv. As it 

 abounds with flowers of a globular figure, and of delicious 

 fragrance, it is perhaps the same as the shitlah-trce, which 

 (Isaiah xli. 19) is joined wiih the niATtle and other sweet- 



