SPIKENARD OF THE ANTIEXTS* II3 



M lity even of contemporary writers concerning 

 " Alexander, whose fame was astonishingly high," 

 <c and whose historians, preferring wonders to truth, 

 iC wrote with secure negrliaence : well knowing 

 " that, as the farthest limits of Asia were the scene 

 "■ of his actions, their assertions could hardly be dis- 

 <( proved." Now Arriax's principal authority was 

 Aristobulus of Cassandra, whose writings were 

 little prized by the antients, and who not only as- 

 serted, " that Gadrosis produced very tall ///>*;r/;-trees, 

 " with the gum of which the Pheniciaus loaded many 

 " beasts" (notwithstanding the slaughter of them from 

 the distress of the whole army) but, with the fancy 

 of a poet describing the nest of a phoenix, placed 

 myrrh, incense, and cassia, with cinnamon and spik-e- 

 nard itself, even in the wilds of Arabia. " The fruit- 

 " fulness of Arabia" says Arrian, " tempted the 

 " kins; of Macedon to form a design of invading it ; 



<D Do* 



" for he had been assured that myrrh and frankin- 

 <( cense were collected from the trees of that coun- 

 " try ; that cinnamon was procured from one of its 

 *-1 shrubs ; and that its meadows produced spontane- 

 " ously abundance of spikenard." Herodotus, in- 

 deed, had heard of cinnamon in Arabia, where the 

 Lauras, to the bark of which we now give that 

 name, was, I verily believe, never seen : even the 

 myrrh- tree does not seem to have been a native of 

 Arabia ; and the public are now informed that it was 

 transplanted from Abyssinian forests, and has not 

 flourished on the opposite shore ; but, whatever be 

 the countries of myrrh and cinnamon, we may be cer- 

 Vol. IV. I tain 



