14 



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A note on some Gum Benjamin from the Federated Malay States 

 sent to the Imperial Institute in 1905 was published in the Bulletin 

 V. p., 261. Examination showed that it resembled Palembang Ben- 

 zoin, and at prices at the time (1906) would be valued at £2.8 to £2.10 

 per cwt. a better quality at £3 8 per cwt. 



Benzoin is not mentioned by iVEarco Polo, but we have an early 

 account of it by Garcia da Orta in 1593 (Historia aromatum). He 

 describes two forms known in his time (l) the almonds iamygdaloides) 

 which came from Siam and the borders of Martaban, and which took 

 its name from its containing portions like nails [ungues) or white 

 spots. This was the most valued form then as it is now ; (2) the form 

 from Java and Sumatra which was cheaper. He mentions a black 

 form from Sumatra called Benjin de Boninas, on account of its 

 pleasing scent which was of ten times the price the other forms. He 

 gives the name Cominham (Keminiyan) as Chinese and gives also the 

 Arab name Louanjaoi (Luban Jawi). He describes also the tree of 

 which he had specimens, with some accuracy, and states that it 

 occurs in Malacca in wet woods, and says that the natives obtain the 

 resin by wounding the tree. The young trees give, he says, the most 

 fragrant resin, the Benjin de Boninas, which is obtained from the 

 province of Bayros. He obtained this information and the specimens 

 at some expense of money, as besides the great difficulty of penetrat- 

 ing the forests of Malacca, there was the greatest danger to be feared 

 from the tigers which dwelt in the forest and which the natives called 

 Reimones, a quaint latinizing of Rimau. 



Marsden's History of Sumatra, p 123, gives an account of the 

 product as treated in his day (1783). The tree, he says, grows in 

 great abundance m the northern parts of the island, principally in the 

 Battak country, and is met with though rarely to the south of the line 

 where, from natural inferiority,, or want of skill in collecting it, the 

 small quantity produced is black and of little value. In some places 

 near the coast the natives cultivate large plantations of it as the 

 quickness of its growth affords them a probability of reaping the ad- 

 vantage of their industry. The seeds or nuts are sown in the paddy 

 fi'^lds and afterwards require no other cultivation than to clear away 

 the shrubs from about them. When the trees are grown so big as to 

 have trunks of six or eight inches in diameter incisions are made in 

 the bark from whence afterwards the gum exudes which is carefully 

 pored off with a knife. The purest of the gum coming first from the 

 tree is white, soft and fragrant, and is called Head Benjamin. The 

 inferior sorts, which in the operation are more or less mixed v/ith the 

 porings and perhaps other juices of the tree, are darker coloured and 

 harder, particularly the foot which is very foul. The trees will seldom 

 be^r a repetition of these incisions more than lO or 12 years. The 

 head is subdivided into Europe and India head of which the first is 

 superior and the only sort adapted to that market, the other with 

 most of the belly goes to Arabia, the Gulf of Persia and some places 

 in India. " It is brought down from the country in **Tanibangs " or 



