APPENDIX. 37 



ail along the coafl to the Straits of Babelmandeb is its na- 

 tive country. It grows to a tree above fourteen feet high, 

 fpontaneouflyand without culture, like the myrrh, the coffee, 

 and frankincenfe tree; they are all equally the wood of the 

 country, and are occasionally cut down and ufed for fuel. . 

 We need not doubt but that it was early tranfplanted into 

 Arabia, that is, into the fouth part of Arabia Felix, immedi- 

 ately fronting Azab v the place of its nativity. The high 

 country of Arabia was too cold to receive it, being all 

 mountainous ; water freezes there. 



3 - 



There is an anecdote relating to Sir William Middleton 

 who was furprifed and taken prifoner by the Turks in the 

 firft attempt to open- the trade of the Red Sea, that when 

 about to fet * out for Sanaa, corruptly called Zenan, the re- 

 iidence of the Imam, or prince of Arabia Felix, he was by 

 the people denred f to take his fur cloak along with him to 

 keep him from the cold ; he thought they were ridiculing 

 him upon what he had to fuffer from the approaching 

 heat, which he was convinced in the middle of Arabia 

 niuft be exceflive. 



The firft plantation that fucceeded feems to have been 

 at Petra, the ancient metropolis of Arabia, now called Beder, 

 ©r Beder Hunein, whence I got one of the fpecimens from 

 which the prefent drawing is made. . 



Joseph us *, in the hhTory of the antiquities of his countryy 

 r, fays, that a tree of this balfam was brought to Jerufalem by 



th© 



'Dec. sad, 1610. f Purchas, chap. xi» §. 3. J Jofeph. Antiquit, lib. .y. 



