128 DR. G. BIRDWOOD ON THE GENUS BOSWELLIA. 
for centuries in frankincense. In the way of this trade, however much its monopolists 
may have desired to make a mystery about it, the country from which it was procured 
must have become known to thousands of persons; and therefore great weight is to be 
given to the common consent which these passages prove that frankincense was procured 
from “Arabia,” “the Arabians,” * Sabaa,” “the Sabzans," ** Panchaia" '. 
As, however, in ancient times, the whole commerce of the east and west was for centu- 
ries poured into and exchanged in the coast-cities of Arabia, a commerce so rich and 
rare, and which so struck the imaginations of men, that some of the sublimest allusions 
of the Hebrew prophets are derived from it, and its fame “vibrates in the memory” yet 
of all the countries of the Mediterranean and Arabian seas, many products of countries 
further east than Arabia may have been, and indeed were, received in the west or Medi- 
terranean countries as the products of Arabia; but, as to frankincense, it is only neces- 
sary to reply here that it is always mentioned as a foreign produetion in ancient 
Hindoo books, according to Heeren?, and that to this day the people in the bazars of 
Western India say that it comes from Arabia, and that not, I believe, because it is 
simply the fact, but of the great myth of the ancient commerce of the Sabæans, which 
still lingers in the east. 
The high honour in which the offering of frankincense was held, is shown by its being 
named as one of the three gifts of the “wise men from the east” *, the significance of 
which is well illustrated by the passages in Claudian and A. P. Clemens to which I have 
above alluded. 
In the Revelation, xviii. 11-13, we have another confirmation of the importance of the 
trade in it when that book was written :—* And the merchants of the earth shall weep 
and mourn over her [Babylon]; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: the 
merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and 
purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner of vessels of ivory, and 
all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and 
cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine 
flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls 
of men; si vi 
I believe that the Arabian writers Avicenna, Serapion, Edresi, Abulfeda, and Ibn Batuta 
all agree that frankincense is produced in the Hadramaut, behind Merbat and Sheba?. 
Serapion and Avicenna, misleading themselves by Dioscorides, say that it is produced 
in India also’. Abulfeda says that frankincense is found nowhere else but in Yemen. 
IBx Barura would appear to have seen the tree at Hafek or Hasik. His words are :— 
* Leaving Zofar (Dofar, Lee; Sephar of Bible ?—G. B.), I proceeded to sea towards Amman, 
and on the second day put into the port of Hasik, where many Arab fishermen reside. 
1 « I know where the IsLes or PERFUME are, 
Many a fathom down in the sea, 
To the south of sun-bright Arasy!” 
2 I have it in my note-book that Heeren asserts this, but have failed to verify the note for the purpose of this paper: 
* Matt in ih. * Bocharti Geo. Sac. Traj. ad Rhenum, 1674; Lugd. Bat. 1692, lib. ii. c. 18. 
$ Bochart, loc. cit. ; Garcia ab Horto, Aromat. et Simpl. Hist. lib. i. c. 6, Ant. 1579. 
