THE ISLE OF FRANKINCENSE 



By Charles K. Moser 

 Formerly United States Consul- General to Aden, Arabia 



SINCE the days of the ancient Egyp- 

 tians, frankincense has been em- 

 ployed in the religious rites of 

 many peoples. Intrepid merchants of 

 Persia and of Phoenicia sailed their ar- 

 gosies to the edge of the unknown in 

 search of the fragrant resin equally 

 prized by the high priests of Judah, the 

 vestal virgins in their incense offerings 

 to the gods, and the Romans who em- 

 ployed its perfume in the celebration of 

 triumphs to their victorious Caesars. 



Frankincense is a gum resin obtained 

 from certain trees of the genus Boswellia, 

 found in East Africa and Arabia. An 

 incision having been made in the bark of 

 the tree, a milky juice exudes and slowly 

 hardens in tear-shaped drops of yellow- 

 ish hue. These are gathered as olibanum, 

 or the true frankincense. The idea that 

 frankincense was originally a product of 

 India probably arose from a confusion 

 of it with other odoriferous products of 

 that country, and because of the fact that 

 imported frankincense is sold with native 

 Indian products. 



In the Roman Catholic Church todav 

 it is recommended that frankincense con- 

 stitute as large a proportion as possible 

 of the incense used. In the Russian 

 Church benzoin is much employed. The 

 silver fir tree of Europe furnishes a resin 

 which is the common frankincense of the 

 pharmacopoeias. 



Among ancient and medieval peoples 

 frankincense was the physician's cure-all, 

 being confidently administered for fevers, 

 boils, internal disorders, leprosy, as an 

 antidote to hemlock poisoning, as a seda- 

 tive, a stimulant, and a tonic. 



SOCOTRA, ANCIENT SOURCE OE 



FRANKINCENSE 



As a chip hurled from the woodsman's 

 ax, Socotra seems to have been torn off 

 in the making of Africa and flung away 

 into the Indian Ocean. In ancient times 

 Socotra and the southern Hadramaut 



produced all the frankincense in the 

 world, but today the largest supply comes 

 from the Warsangli country, in Somali- 

 land. 



This fragment of the Dark Continent, 

 73 miles long by 35 miles wide in its 

 widest part and lying 543 miles east of 

 Aden, is said to be geologically older than 

 eastern Asia; yet in the centuries which 

 have elapsed since the argosies of Persia 

 and Tyre sought it out for its precious 

 balsams it has been almost forgotten. 

 The Europeans who have visited it could 

 be counted on one's fingers. Every ship 

 that passes through Bab-el-Mandeb, east 

 or west, sights its cloud-belted peaks — 

 and gives it room ; for Socotra has no 

 harbors, and the monsoon snarls about 

 its uncharted rocks like a hungry lioness 

 lying in wait for her prey. 



It was my good fortune to be one of a 

 party, headed by His Britannic Majesty's 

 Resident at Aden, which left the latter 

 city with the intention of adventure and 

 a week's camping-out in the cool Socotran 

 Mountains. 



AWAITING A ROYAL VISITOR 



By great luck we had excellent weather, 

 and at dawn on the third day we dropped 

 anchor in a shallow bay, smooth and 

 transparent as glass, about three miles 

 from a long, curving, yellow beach backed 

 with palm fronds. Still farther back 

 stood a vast rampart of gray limestone 

 mountains sticking needle-pointed peaks 

 up. into the clouds. These were the peaks 

 of Haghier and we were anchored in 

 Tamarida Bay. Before us, smothered in 

 the palms, lay Hadibo. the capital of the 

 island. 



For an hour we awaited some signal to 

 indicate that our presence had been ob- 

 served. A royal visitor was expected to 

 breakfasts — His Highness the Sultan Has- 

 san ibn Imad, lord of the isle of frankin- 

 cense and of Kishn, on the south Arabian 

 coast. Sixty feet below us, through the 



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