VOL. LXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. (J73 



the Troglodytia ; not to be confounded with another nation of Troglodytes, 

 very different in all respects, living in the forests between Abyssinia and Nubia. 

 The myrrh of the Troglodytes was always, as now, preferred to that of Arabia. 

 That part of Abyssinia being half overrun and settled, half wasted and aban- 

 doned, by a barbarous nation from the southward, very little correspondence or 

 commerce has been since carried on between the Arabians and that coast; unless 

 by some desperate adventures of Mahometan merchants, made under accidental 

 circumstances, which have sometimes succeeded, and very often likewise have 

 miscarried. 



The most frequent way by which this Troglodyte myrrh is exported, is from 

 Massowa, a small Abyssinian island, on the coast of the Red Sea. Yet the 

 quantity of Abyssinian myrrh is so very small, in comparison of that of Arabia 

 sent to Grand Cairo, that we may safely attribute to this only the reason why 

 our myrrh is not so good in quality as the myrrh of the ancients, which was 

 Abyssinian. Though those barbarians make use of the gum, leaves, and bark, 

 of this tree, in diseases to which they are subject ; yet as very little is wanted for 

 such purposes, and the tree is the common timber of the country, this does not 

 hinder them from cutting it down every day, to burn for the common uses of 

 life ; and as they never plant, or replace the trees destroyed, it is probable, that 

 in some years the true Troglodyte myrrh will not exist ; and the erroneous 

 descriptions of the Greek physicians will lead posterity, as they have done us 

 now, into various conjectures, all of them false, on the question, what that 

 myrrh of the ancients was? i „.jj,^h^ nv/offjfv 



Though the myrrh of the Troglodytes was superior to any Arabian, yet the 

 Greeks perceived that it was not all of equal goodness. Pliny and Theophras- 

 tus makes this difference to arise from the trees being partly wild, partly culti- 

 vated. But this is an imaginary reason ; all the trees were wild. But it was the 

 age of the tree and its health, the manner of making the cut or wound in it, 

 the time of gathering the myrrh, and the circumstances of the climate when it 

 was gathered, that constantly determined, and does yet determine, the quality 

 of the drug. In order to have myrrh of the first, or most perfect sort, the 

 savages chuse a young, vigorous tree, whose bark is without moss, or any para- 

 site plant ; and, above the first large branches, give the tree a deep wound with 

 an axe. The myrrh which flows the first year, through this wound, is myrrh 

 of the first growth ; and never in very great quantity. This operation is per- 

 formed some time after the rains have ceased ; that is, from April to June ; and 

 the myrrh is produced in July and August. The sap once accustomed to issue 

 through this gash, continues to do so spontaneously, at the return of every 

 season : but the tropical rains, which are very violent, and continue 6 months, 

 wash so much dirt, and lodge so much water in the cut, that in tlie 2d year, 



VOL. XIII. 4 R 



