142 DR. G. BIRDWOOD ON THE GENUS BOSWELLIA. 
survive in the nations of the Mediterranean shores; for at the Universal Exhibition of 
Paris, in 1867, I saw several bottles of frankincense labelled “ olibanum, so called because 
it comes from Mount Lebanon." I also saw there aconite, labelled ** Aconitum Nepaul- 
lus, so named because its root is the famous poison of Nepaul." 
The * Oxford Encyclopædia’ says that olibanum is quasi Oleum Libani, being distilled 
from the bark of a tree growing on Mount Lebanon ! 
It would be presumption in me to enter into the etymology of the synonyms of 
frankincense. I have been unable even to discover when the English word frankincense 
came first to be used'. But I cannot help asking if thus and tus are really the same 
word—why the Italian for frankincense should be olibano, as if formed from the Greek 
or Arabic—if there be any connexion, and what its significance may be, between the 
Arabie words “ Cunder," * Al-Kundooroo," and Sanscrit “ Cunduru,” for frankincense, 
and the Greek yév8po0c—and why the Bay of Al Kammar is so named. 
Burton? mentions that “ Lubban” is the Soumali for milk, and a term of reproach. It will 
have been observed that the names of the different varieties of Soumali frankincense arc 
identical with the names of the Bunders from which they are exported. Have the Bunders 
given their names to the varieties of frankincense, or these to the Bunders ? Cruttenden 
says that the myrrh of the Soumalis comes from a place in the interior of their country 
called Murrayhan, and is exported from Bunder Murrayha—with which name no variety 
of frankincense corresponds. Does this indicate any etymological connexion with myrrh, 
the links of which the Soumalis themselves have lost? Also, what is the derivation of 
the name of the Soumali port of Berbera? The correspondence between some of the 
synonyms of frankincense and the words used in different languages for the slaying 
or burning of sacrificial victims is very interesting. But I have only to observe, in 
connexion with this, two things that have always struck me in Bombay, viz. that the 
burning of the dead, in the form of the pyre, and the manner in which the body is 
burned, very forcibly suggests that the practice is derived from human bloody sacrifice, 
and that the use of sweet odours, in religious rites generally, originated in sanitary pre- 
cautions. They do not merely mask bad smells, but correct them; and they wonderfully 
refresh the spirits from the depression which they fall into in crowded places like churches. 
They also drive out vermin. Nothing so quickly clears your bed in Bombay of mos- 
quitos as burning a little olibanum or myrrh in it. The Protestant churches there are 
* Minsheu, London, 1599, has “ frankincense—encensio.” Cotgrave, London, 1632, has “ frankincense—encens. 
F. in drops—oliban.” Steph. Skinner, M.D., Etymol. Ling. Angl., London, 1671, has “frankincense, thus, q. d. 
Incensum, i. e. Thus libere seu liberaliter, ut in sacris officiis par est, adolendum." Rob. Brady, M.D., < An Introduc- 
tion to the Old English History and Glossary, London, 1684, has no mention of frankincense. Gower, in his story of 
Leucothea, from Ovid's * Methamor,” turns her * into a flour was named golde” (Confessio Amantis, Pauli, ed. Lond. 
1857, lib. x.). 
* “First Footsteps in East Africa, London, 1856. In the preface to this work, Burton says that an expe- 
dition into the Soumali land was first proposed by Sir Charles Malcolm in 1849, and that the command of it was 
offered to and accepted by Carter in 1851, but that after Sir Charles Maleolm's death the project was given Eo. 
and that when Burton proposed his expedition in 1854, Stocks was appointed to it as botanist, but died before it — 
started. The savans who went with the * Abyssinian Army" had no time for work, so swift was Lord Napier $ ji 
march to Magdala and back. 
