VOL. LXV.] VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6/5 



myrrh was ; unless it be those pieces still remaining in my collection, and a 

 piece, somewhat smaller than yours, which I gave to the king of France's 

 cabinet at Paris. This piece which I send you, had lost near 6 drachms Troy of 

 its weight, between the 27th of August, 1771, and the 2gth of June, 1773. 

 It has lost a very few grains since. It was kept, as were all the other pieces, 

 with great care in cotton, separately in C box, to prevent its losing weight by 

 friction. . , ofl rfoidw %inU s »lirv 



Opocalpasum. — At the time when I was on the borders of the Tal-Tal, or 

 Troglodyte country, I sought to procure myself branches and bark of the myrrh 

 tree, enough preserved to be able to draw it ; but the length and ruggedness of 

 the way, the heat of the weather, and the carelessness and want of resources of 

 naked savages, always disappointed me. In those goat-skin bags into which I 

 had often ordered them to put small branches, I always found the leaves mostly 

 in powder ; some few that were entire, seemed to resemble much the acacia vera, 

 but were wider towards the extremity, and more pointed immediately at the end. 

 In what order the leaves grew, I never could determine. The bark was abso- 

 lutely like that of the acacia vera ; and among the leaves I often met with a small 

 straight weak thorn, about 2 inches long. These were all the circumstances I 

 could combine, relative to the myrrh tree, too vague and uncertain to risk a 

 drawing on, when there still remained so many desiderata concerning it ; and as 

 the king was obstinate not to let me go thither, after what had happened to the 

 surgeon, mate, and boat's crew, of the Elgin Indiaman, I was obliged to 

 abandon the drawing of the myrrh tree to some more fortunate traveller. At 

 the same time that I was taking these pains about the myrrh, I had desired the 

 savages to bring me all the gums they could find, with the branches and bark of 

 the trees that produced them. They brought me, at different times, some very 

 fine pieces of incense, and at another time, a very small quantity of a bright 

 colourless gum, sweeter on burning than incense ; but no branches of either 

 tree, though I found this latter afterwards, in another part of Abyssinia. But 

 at all times they brought me quantities of gum, of an even and close grain, and 

 of a dark brown colour, which was produced by a tree called sassa : and twice J 

 received branches of this tree in tolerable order ; and of these I made a drawing. 

 Some weeks after, walking in a Mahometan village, I saw a large tree, wilh the 

 whole upper part of the trunk and the large branches so covered with great 

 bosses and knobs of gum, as to appear monstrous: and asking further about the 

 tree, I found that it had been brought, many years before, from the myrrh 

 country by merchants, and planted there for the sake of its gum, vvith which 

 these Mahometans stiffened the blue Surat cloths, which they got damaged from 

 Mocha, to trade in with the Galla and Abyssinians. Neither the tree which 

 they called sassa, nor the name, nor the gum, could allow me to doubt a 



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