000 SAMTALACEiE. 



Sandal wood is named by Masudi ^ as one of the costly aromatics of 

 the Eastern Archipelago. In India it was used in the most sacred 

 buildings, of which a memorable example still exists in the famous 

 gates of Somnath, supposed to be 1000 years old.'- 



In the 11th century sandal wood was found among the treasures of 

 the Egyptian khalifs, as stated in our article on camphor at page 511. 



Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus, who flourished 

 at Salerno in the 11th century, was one of the earliest to mention 

 Sandalum.'* Ebn Serabi, called Serapion the Younger, who lived about 

 the same period, was acquainted with ivhite, yellow, and red sandal 

 wood.* All three kinds of sandal wood also occur in a list of drugs" in 

 use at Frankfort, circa A.D. 1450; and in the Compendiurii Aromata- 

 riorum of Saladinus, published in 1488, we find mentioned as proper to 

 be kept by the Italian apothecary, — " Sandali triuni generuni, scilicet 

 albi, Q'ubii et citrini." 



Whether the red sandal here coupled with luhite and yellovj was 

 the inodorous wood of Pterocarpus santalinus, now called Lignum 

 sanialinum ruhritni or Red Sanders (see p. 199), is extremely doubtful. 

 It may have meant real sandal wood, of which three shades, designated 

 ivhite, red, and yelloiv, are still recognized by the Indian traders.*' 



On the other hand, we learn from Barbosa-' that about 1511 white 

 and yellow sandal wood were worth at Calicut on the Malabar Coast 

 from eight to ten times as much as the red, which would show that in 

 his day the red was not a mere variety of the other two, but something 

 far cheaper, like the Red Sanders Wood of modern commerce. 



In 1635 the subsidy levied on sandal wood imported into England 

 was Is. per lb. on the ivhite, and 2s. per lb. on the yellow.^ 



The first figure and satisfactory description of Santaluin albuiio 

 occur in the Herhariumii A/mboinense of Rumphius (ii. tab. 11). 



Production — The dry tracts producing this valuable wood occupy 

 patches of a strip of country lying chiefly in Mysore and Coimbatore, 

 about 250 miles long, north and north-west of the Neilgherry Hills, 

 and having Coorg and Canara between it and the Indian Ocean; also a 

 piece of country further eastward in the districts of Salem and North 

 Arcot, where the tree grows from the sea-level up to an elevation of 

 8000 feet. In Mysore, where sandal wood is most extensively pro- 

 duced, the trees all belong to Government, and can only be felled by 

 the proper officers. This privilege was conferred on the East India 

 Company by a treaty with Hyder Ali, made 8 August 1770, and the 



1 1. 222 in the work quoted in the * Liber Serapionis aggreyatun in medicinis 



Appendix. simplicibtis, 1473. 



- They are 1 1 feet high and 9 feet wide, ^ Fluckiger, Die Frankfurler Liste, Halle, 



and richly carved out of sandal wood ; they 1873. 11. 



were constructed for the temple of Som- •= Thus Milburn in his Oriental Commerce 



nath in Guzerat, once esteemed the holiest (1813) says — ". . . the deeper the colour, 



temple in India. On its destruction in a. d. the higher is the perfume; and hence the 



102.5, the gates were carried off to Ghuzni merchants sometimes divide sandal into ?'e J, 



in Afghanistan, where they remained until yelloiu, and cchite, but these are all different 



the capture of that city by the English in shades of the same colour, and do not arise 



1842, when they were taken back to India. from any difference in the sjiecies of the 



They are now preserved in the citadel of tree." — (i. 291.) 



Agra. For a representation of the gates, '' Ramusio, Is'avUjationi et Viayyi, etc. , 



see ArcJueolofjia, xxx. (1844) pi. 14. Venet. 1554. fol. 357 b., Libro di Odoardo 



^ Opera, Basil. 1536-39, Lib. de Oradibus, Barbosa PoHo'jhese. 



369. ^ The Rates of MarchandizeSt'Lovi^. \QSo. 



