DR. G. BIRDWOOD ON THE GENUS BOSWELLIA. 129 
We have here the incense-tree. This tree has a thin leaf, which, when scarified, 
produces a fluid like milk: this turns into gum, and is then called loban or frankin- 
cense”. 
Marco Poro’ writes of the city of Escier or. Escher (Sheher, Saher, Sahar) :—** This 
district produces a large quantity of white frankincense of the best quality, which distils, 
drop by drop, from a certain small tree that resembles the fir. The people occasionally 
tap the tree or pare away the bark; and from the incision the frankincense gradually 
exudes, which afterwards becomes hard. Even when an incision is not made, an exuda- 
tion is perceived to take place, in consequence of the excessive heat of the climate.” 
“The frankincense is so cheap in the country as to be purchased by the governor at 
the rate of ten bezants the quintal, who sells it again to the merchants for forty bezants. 
This is done under the direction of the soldan of Aden, who monopolizes all that is 
produced in the district, and derives a large profit from the re-sale." 
Of Duflar (Dofar) he writes :—** Frankincense is likewise produced here, and purchased 
by the merchants." 
TuzvET says that frankincense is produced, with myrrh, in the country abont Pecher 
(Sheher ?) and Fartack, cities of the kingdom of Aden, that there are two sorts (one, which 
is gathered in the dog-days, whitish, pure, clean eut, and solid, and the other, collected 
in the spring, which is reddish), and that the tree resembles the resiniferous firs. But 
the figure which he gives of it is of an undoubted Boswellia, as figures go in these old 
books. In the background, it is important to observe, are clumps of firs. 
Garcia AB Horro* says most positively that no frankincense is produced in India, 
and that all that is used in India, or imported into Portugal, comes from Arabia (he 
wonders that Dioscorides, followed by Avicenna and Serapion, should say it grows in 
India), that the Arabs call the darker kinds of frankincense Indian, that there are two 
kinds of frankincense, one that is produced on the mountains and the best, and the 
other, which is inferior and dark, produced in the plains, and that the tree is like the 
mastick,—the figure given of it in this edition being a copy of Thevet's, without the 
background of firs. | 
GERARD, merely copies from Thevet. 
Cuusrus* merely notes on Garcia ab Horto’s account of frankincense the invention of 
the synonym olibanum for it by Gerard in his translation of Avicenna, published at 
Venice A.D. 1490 :—“ The Arabs call it Loban, unde Gerardus Carmonensis fecit suum 
Olibanum (cap. 525, lib. ii. Avisenæ), which is wonderful, when that chapter in the 
Arabie copy has not Loban but Conder.” But this is not the first use of the synonym 
olibanum for frankincense. It is used by Pope Benedict IX. in 1033*. 
Sruckrus’ says that frankincense comes from Arabia. 
* Travels, translated by Lee. 
* Travels, bk. iii. ch. 40, “On the Province of Aden,” 
* La Cosmographie Universelle: Paris, 1575. 
* The Herbal: London, 1597. * Exoticarum Lib. Dec. : 1605. 
. * Italia Sacra auct. Ferd. Ughello: Ven. 1717. G ium Manuale ad Scrip. Mediæ et Infims Latinitatis: Halle, 
1778. * Sacrorum Sacrificiorumque Gentilium Descriptio: Tiguri, 1598. 
s 2 
Bohn’s series. Also Bergeron's Collection. 
* Aromatum et Simplicium Hist., Ant. 1579, loc. supra cit. 
