NOTES. Ixi 



serrata, of Kunth's family of Burseraceae. As from the very ancient commer- 

 cial connections between the coasts of southern Arabia and western India 

 (Gildemeister, Scriptorum Arabum Loci de rebus Indicis, p. 35) it might be 

 doubted whether the \ifiavos of Theophrastus, (the Thus of the Romans), be- 

 longed originally to the Arabian peninsula, Lassen's remark (indische Altef- 

 thumskunde, Bd. i. S. 286), that incense is called " yawana, Javanese, i. e. 

 Arabian, in Amara-Koscha itself," apparently implying that it is brought to 

 India from Arabia, becomes very important. It is called in Amara-Koscha, 

 "turuschka', pindaka', sihlo, (three names signifying incense), yawano" (Amara- 

 kocha, pubi. par A. Loiseleur Deslongchamps, P. i. 1839, p. 1 56). Dioscoridea 

 distinguishes Arabian from Indian incense. Carl Hitter, in his excellent 

 monograph on the kinds of incense (Asien, Bd. viii. Abth. i. S. 356 372), 

 remarks very justly, that, from the similarity of climate, this species of plant 

 (Boswellia thurifera) may well extend over a region reaching from India, 

 through the south of Persia, to Arabia. The American incense (Olibauum 

 americanum of our Pharmacopoeia) is obtained from Icica gujanensis, AubL 

 and Icica tacamahaca, which Bonpland and myself found growing abundantly 

 in the vast grassy plains (Llanos) of Calaboso in South America. Icica, like 

 Boswellia, belongs to the family of Burseracea?. The red pine (Pinus abies, 

 Linn.) produces the common incense of our churches. The plant which bears 

 myrrh, and which Bruce thought he had seen (Ainslie, Materia Medica of 

 Hindostan, Madras, 1813, p. 29) has been discovered near el-Gisan in 

 Arabia, by Ehrenberg, and has been described, from the specimens collected 

 by him, under the name of Balsamodendron myrrha, by Nees von Esenbeck. 

 Rilsamodendron kotaf of Kunth, an Amyris of Forskal, was long erro- 

 neously supposed to be the true myrrh tree. 



( 318 ) p. 207. Wellsted, Travels in Arabia, 1838, Vol. i. p. 272289. 



P>) p. 207. Jomard, Etudes geogr. et hist, sur 1' Arabic, 1839, p. 14 

 and 32. 



P) p. 207. Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 167 (English trans. Vol. ii. p. 133.) 



P) p. 208. Isaiah, Ix. 6. 



P) p. 209. Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, Bd. i. S. 300 and 450 ; 

 Bunsen, ^Egypten, Buch iii. S. 10 and 32. The traditions of Medes and 

 Persians in northern Africa indicate very ancient migrations to the westward. 

 They have been connected with the variously related myth of Hercules, and 

 the Phoenician Melkarth. (Compare Sallust, Bellum Jugurth. cap. 18, drawn 

 from Punic writings, by Hiempsal ; and Pliny, v. 8.) Strabo even calls the 



