j6 LOUREIRO ON THE NATURE AttD MODE 



cenna, Serapias, Rhasis, Isaac, and Aver- 

 roes are particular in their mention of it. 



Before the Portuguese had in the fifteenth cen- 

 tury with a perseverance truly heroic, by doubling 

 the Cape of Good Hope, opened to the world the 

 direct commerce of India (where only it is to be 

 found), it had been imported thence to Arabia 

 and afterwards by way of Suez to Cairo and Alex- 

 andria ; from which port it was brought by the 

 Venetians to Europe. But previous to this, and 

 even before the Christian era, it was carried, with 

 other valuable Asiatic commodities, from the East 

 to the West, by the merchants of Tyre and 

 Phoenicia ; who, in those times, were of all na- 

 tions the most skilled in the arts of navigation 

 and commerce. 



The tree which yields this valuable material, is 

 a native of that part of India, which lies beyond 

 the Ganges, and there only in some places not far 

 removed from the Equinoctial line, as in the king- 

 doms of Cochin China, Laos and' Siam. In the king- 

 dom of Tonquin it is only found in small quantity, 



