142 BURSERACE^. 



Arabian traders, with whom the Chinese had constant intercourse during 

 the middle ages. Myrrh in fact is still somewhat largely consumed in 

 China.^ 



The name Myrrh is from the Hebrew and Arabic Mur, meaning 

 bitter, whence also the Greek a-jxvpva. The ancient Egyptian Bola or 

 Bal, and the Sanskrit Yola are preserved in the Persian and Indian 

 words Bol, Bola, and Heera-hol, well-known names for myrrh. 



Stacte {(TTaKTii), a substance often mentioned by the ancients, is 

 said by Pliny to be a spontaneous liquid exudation of the myrrh tree, 

 more valuable than myrrh itself. The author of the Periplus of the 

 Erythrean Sea represents it as exported from Muza in Arabia^ together 

 with myrrh. Theophrastus^ speaks of myrrh as of two kinds, solid and 

 liquid. No drug of modern times has been identified with the stacte or 

 liquid myrrh of the ancients: that it was a substance obtainable in 

 quantity seems evident from the fact that 150 pounds of it, said to be 

 the offering of an Egyptian city, were presented to St. Silvester at Rome, 

 A.D. 314-335.' 



The myrrh of the ancients was not always obtained from Arabia. 

 The author of the Periplus,^ who wrote about a.d. 64, records it to have 

 been an export of Abalites, Malao, and Mosyllon (the last-named the 

 modern Berbera), ancient ports of the African coast outside the straits 

 of Bab-el-Mandeb; and he even mentions that it is conveyed by small 

 vessels to the opposite shores of Arabia. 



Secretion — Marchand* who examined and figured the sections of 

 a branch of three years' growth of B. Myrrha, represents the gum-resin 

 as chiefly deposited in the cortical layers, with a little in the medulla. 



Collection — By the Somal tribe myrrh is largely collected as it 

 flows out, incisions, according to Hildebrandt, being never practised. 

 From the information given by Ehrenberg to Nees von Esenbeck,'' it 

 appears that myrrh when it first exudes is of an oily and then of a 

 buttery appearance, yellowish white, gradually assuming a golden tint 

 and becoming reddish as it hardens. It exudes from the bark like 

 cherry-tree gum, and becomes dark and of inferior value by age. 

 Although Ehrenberg says that the myrrh he saw was of fine quality, 

 he does not mention it being gathered by the natives. 



With regard to the localities^ in which the drug is collected, 

 Cruttenden," who visited the Somali coast in 1843, says that myrrh is 

 brought from the Wadi Nogal, south west of Cape Gardafui, and from 

 Murreyhan, Ogadain and Agahora ; and that some few trees are found 

 on the mountains behind Bunder Murayah. Major Harris ^" saw the 

 myrrh tree in the Adel desert and in the jungle of the Hawash, on the 

 way from Tajura to Shoa. 



^ Shanghai imported in 1872, 18,600 lbs. * Recherches sur V Organisation des Bur- 



of myrrh. — Reports of Trade at the Treaty seracies, Paris, 1868, p. 42, pi. i. 

 Ports in China for 1872, p. 4. ^ Op. cit. at p. 140, note 1. 



2 Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii. * See paper with map in Ocean ^/(/^it^ays, 



(1870)316. — Muza or Moosa is supposed to April, 1873, also Pharm. Journ. 19 April, 



be identical with a place still bearing that 1873. 821, and Hanbury's Science Papers, 



name lying about 20 miles east of Mokha. 378. 



^ Lib. ix. c. 4. ^ Trans. Bombay Geogr. Soc. vii. (1846) 



* Vignolius, Liber Pontificalis, i. (1724) 123. 

 95. " Highlands of JSthiopia (1844) i. 426 ; 



» Vincent, op. cit. ii. 127. 129, 135. ii. 414. 



