ALOE. (vSl 



At this period and for long afterwards the drug was imported into 

 Europe by way of the Red Sea and Alexandria. After the discovery of 

 a route to India by the Cape of Good Hope the old line of commerce 

 probably began to change. 



Pires, an apothecary at Cochin, in a letter on Eastern drugs ^ ad- 

 dressed to Manuel, king of Portugal, in lolG, reports that aloes grows 

 in the island of (^acotora, Aden, Cambaya, Valencia of Arragon, and in 

 other parts, — the most esteemed being that of ^acotora, and next it 

 that of Spain; while the drug of Aden and Cambaya is so bad as to be 

 worthless. 



In the early part of the 17th century there was a direct trade in 

 aloes between England and Socotra; and in the records of the East 

 India Company there are many notices of the drug being bought of the 

 " King of Socotra." Frequently the king's whole stock of aloes is 

 mentioned as having been purchased.- 



Wellstead, who travelled in Socotra in 1833,^ sa\'s that in old times 

 the aloe was far moi'e largely grown there than at present, and that the 

 walls which enclosed the plantations may still be seen. He adds that 

 the produce was a monopoly of the Sultan of the island. At the 

 present day the few productions of Socotia that are exported are carried 

 by the Arab coasting vessels, coming annually from the Persian Gulf to 

 Zanzibar, at which place they are transhipped for Indian and other 

 ports. Dr. Kirk, who has resided at Zanzibar from 186G to 1873, 

 informs us that aloes from Socotra arrives in a very soft state packed 

 in goatskins. From these it is transferred to wooden boxes, in which 

 it concretes, and is shipped to Europe and America. To avoid loss the 

 skins have to be washed; and the aloe tic liquor evaporated. 



Ligon,* who visited the island of Barbados in 1647-50, that is about 

 twenty years after the arrival of the tirst settlers, speaks of the aloe as 

 if it were indigenous, mentioning also the useful plants Avhich had been 

 introduced. At that period the settlers knew how to prepare the juice 

 for medicinal use, but had not begun to export it. Barbados aloes was 

 in the drug warehouses of London in 1693.' 



The manuficture of aloes in the Cape Colony of South Africa was 

 observed by Thunberg in 1773 on the farm of a boer named Peter de 

 Wett, who was the fii'st to prepare the drug in that country .° Cape 

 Aloes is enumei-ated in the stock of a London druggist in 1780, its cost 

 being set down as £10 per cwt. (Is. 9|d per lb.). 



A new and di.stinct sort of aloes, manufactured in the colony of 

 Natal, appeared in English commerce in 1870. It will be described 

 further on. 



Lignum Aloes — It is important to bear in mind that the word 

 Aloes or Lign Aloes, in Latin Lignum Aloes, is used in the Bible and 

 in many ancient writings to designate a substance totally distinct from 

 the modern Aloes, namely the resinous wood of Aquilaria Agallocha 

 Roxburgh, a large tree^ of the order Thymeleacese, growing in the 



1 See Appendix. ■• History of Barbadoes, Lond. 1673. 98. 



-Calendar of State Papers, Colonial ^ Dale's Fharmacoloffia (1693) 361. 



Series, East Indies, China and Japan, ^ Thunberg, Travels in Asia, Europe and 



1513-1616, Lond. 1862. Africa, ii. 49. 50. 



* Journ. of tlie Roy. Geograph. Soc. v. ' Fig. in Royle, Illmtr. of the Himalayan 



(1835) 129-229. But. etc. (1839) tab. 36. See also Diction- 



naire de Botaiw/ne. 



