672 PALMiE. 



As a masticatory areca nut is chewed with a little lime and a leaf of 

 the Betel Pepper, Piper Betle L. The nut for this purpose is used in a 

 young and tender state, or is prepared by boiling in water; it is some- 

 times combined with aromatics, as camphor or cardamom. 



SANGUIS DRACONIS. 



Besina Braconis; Bragons Blood; F. Sang-dragon; G. Brachenblut. 



Botanical Origin — Calamus Braco^ Willd. {Boemonorhops Braco 

 Mart.) — This is one of the Rotang or Rattan Palms, remarkable for their 

 very long flexible stems, which climb among the branches of trees by 

 means of spines on the leafstalk. The species under notice, called in 

 Malay Rotang Jernang, grows in swampy forests of the Residency of 

 Palembang and in the territory of Jambi, in Eastern Sumatra, and in 

 Southern Borneo, which regions furnish the dragon's blood of com- 

 merce. It is said to occur also in Penang and in various islands of the 

 Sun da chain. 



History — The substance which is mentioned by Dioscorides under 

 the name of K.ivm^api, as a costly," pigment and medicine brought from 

 Africa, and which is also described by Pliny who distinguished it from 

 minium, was certainly the resin called Bragon's Blood. It was not 

 however that of the Rotang Palm, Calamus Braco, or even of any tree 

 of the Indian Archipelago, but was on the contrary a production of the 

 island of Socotra (see p. G75). 



Dragon's blood is, we believe, not named by any of the earlier 

 voyagers to the India islands. Ibn Batuta, who visited both Java and 

 Sumatra between A.D. 1325 and 1849, and notices their producing 

 benzoin (see p. 404), cloves, camphor, and aloes-wood, is silent about 

 dragon's blood. Barbosa, whose intelligent narrative (a.d. 1514) of the 

 East Indies^ is full of reference to the trade and productions of the 

 different localities he visited, states that aloes and dragon's blood are 

 produced in Socotra, but makes no mention of the latter commodity as 

 found at Malacca, Java, Sumatra, or Borneo. 



The fact we wish to prove is corroborated by the accounts of early 

 commercial intercourse between the Chinese and Arabs recently pub- 

 lished by Bretschneider.'* From the 10th to the 15th century there was 

 carried on between these nations a trade, the objects of which were not 

 only the productions of the Arabian Gulf and countries further north, 

 but also those of the Indian Archipelago. One of the islands with 

 which the Arabs and Persians carried on a great commerce was Sumatra, 

 whence they obtained the precious camphor so much valued by the 

 Chinese, but not, so far as it appears, the resin dragon's blood. As to 

 the productions brought from Arabia they are enumerated as Ostriches, 

 Olibanum, Liquid Storax, Myrrh, and Bragons Blood, besides a few 

 other articles not yet determined. It is worthy of remark that the 

 Chinese are still the principal consumers of dragon's blood, though like 



^ BeautifuUyfiguredbyBlume, ^M7Mp7(?'rt, arid Malabar (Hakluyt Society), 1866. .SO. 

 ii. (1836) tab. 131-132. 191-197. 



2 Dejtrription of the Coasts of East Africa ^ Knowledge possessed by the Chinese of 



the Arabs, etc., 1871. 



