420 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



Arabs collect it in the morning, when it is coagulated, but it 

 dissolves as soon as the sun shines upon it. They clean 

 away the leaves and dirt which adhere to it ; and, after 

 being boiled, it is strained through a coarse piece of cloth 

 and put into leathern skins, in which it is preserved till the 

 following year. They do not seem to make it into cakes or 

 loaves ; but they dip their morsel into it, or pour it as they 

 do honey over their unleavened bread. It is found only 

 in seasons when copious rains have fallen, and sometimes 

 it is not produced at all. When kept in a cool tempera- 

 ture it is hard and solid, but becomes soft if held in the 

 hand or exposed to the sun. The colour is a dirty yellow ; 

 but the taste is agreeable, somewhat aromatic, and sweet 

 as honey. If eaten in considerable quantities it is said to 

 be slightly purgative. The Bedouins esteem it as the 

 greatest dainty which their country affords : the produce, 

 however, even in the best years, is trifling, perhaps not 

 exceeding 500 or 600 pounds. The harvest is usually in 

 June, and lasts about six weeks. Though the tamarisk 

 abounds in Hejaz, on the Euphrates, and in every part of 

 Arabia, Burckhardt never heard of its yielding manna 

 except in Mount Sinai. He was informed that in Asia 

 Minor near Erzeroum, the kind mentioned by Niebuhr 

 was still collected from the tree which produces the galls ; 

 but this is probably the gum-tragacanth, which is ob- 

 tained from a spinous shrub of the genus Astragalus, and 

 which is so strong that a drachm will give to a pint of water 

 the consistency of a syrup. This gum is indigenous in 

 Natolia, Crete, and Greece. There is, however, a confu- 

 sion in his different accounts of the manna, which he ap- 

 pears sometimes to have mistaken for other vegetable 

 substances. The modern officinal drug sold under this 

 name comes from Italy and Sicily, where it is obtained 

 from a species of ash, with a leaf resembling that of the 

 acacia. The Calabrian manna is said to exude after the 

 puncture of an insect, a species of grashopper that sucks 

 the plant; and this fact led Michaelis to propose the 

 question to the Danish travellers, whether the Arabian 

 species might not be produced in a similar manner. But 

 notwithstanding the identity of the name, the resemblance 

 in the description, and the concurrence of learned natural- 

 ists, it is impossible to reconcile the manna of Scripture 

 with any species of vegetable gum, much less to explain 

 the preternatural circumstances connected with its appear- 



