THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, 257 



your own principle, as I am the flranger. Now, what I have 

 to afk you is this,— Do you know the Sliekh of Beder Hu- 

 nein ? Know him ! fays he, I am married to his filler, a 

 daughter of Harb ; he is of the tribe of Harb." " Harb be 

 it then (faid I) your trouble will be the lefs ; then you are to 

 fend a camel to your brother-in-law, who will procure me 

 the largefl, and moil perfect plant poflible of the Balfam of 

 Mecca. He is not to break the Item, nor even the branches, 

 hut to pack it entire, with fruit and flower, if poflible, and 

 wrap it in a mat." He looked cunning, fhrugged up his 

 Ihoulders, drew up his mouth, and putting his finger to his 

 nofe, faid, " Enough, I know all about this, you fhall find 

 what fort of a man I am, I am no fool, as you fhall fee." 



I received this the third day at dinner, but the flower 

 {if there had been any) was rubbed off. The fruit was in 

 feveral flages, and in great perfection. The drawing, and 

 defcription from this * plant, will, I hope, for ever obviate 

 all difficulty about its hiflory. He fent me, likewife, a quart 

 bottle of the pure balfam, as it had flowed that year from 

 the tree, with which I have verified what the old botanifls in 

 their writings have faid of it, in its feveral flages. He told 

 me alfo the circumflances I have related in my defcription of 

 the balfam, as to the gathering and preparing of the feveral 

 kinds of it, and a curious anecdote- as to its origin. He faid 

 the plant was no part of the creation of God in the fix days, 

 but that, in the lafl of three very bloody battles, which Ma- 

 homet fought with the noble Arabs of Harb, and his kinf- 



Vol. I. Kk men 



* See the article Bale/Tan in the Appendix. 



