Chap. 37.] 
LADAUfUM AND STOBOLON. 
133 
have stated that this substance is the fortuitous result of an ac- 
cidental injury inflicted upon a certain odoriferous plant, under 
the following circumstances : the goat, they say, which is in 
general an animal that is extremely mischievous to foliage, is 
particularly fond of the shrubs that are odoriferous, as if, in- 
deed, it were really sensible of the value that is set upon 
them. Hence it is that as the animal crops the sprouting 
shoots of the branches which are swollen with a liquid juice 
of remarkable sweetness, these juices drop and become min- 
gled together, and are then wiped up by the shaggy hairs of 
its unlucky beard. Being there mingled with the dust, these 
juices form knots and tufts, and are then dried by the sun ; 
and hence the circumstance is accounted for that in the lada- 
num which is imported by us we find goats' hairs. This, 
however, we are told, occurs nowhere but among the IN'aba- 
tsei,^^ a people of Arabia, who border upon Syria. The more 
recent writers call this substance by the name of stobolon, and 
state that in the forests of Arabia the trees are broken by the 
goats while browzing, and that the juices in consequence ad- 
here to their shaggy hair ; but the genuine ladanum, they 
assure us, comes from the island of Cyprus. I make mention of 
this in order that every kind of odoriferous plant may be taken 
some notice of, even though incidentally and not in the order 
of their respetive localities. They say also that this Cyprian 
ladanum is collected in the same manner as the other, and 
that it forms a kind of greasy substance or cesypum,^^ which 
adheres to the beards and shaggy legs of the goats ; but that 
it is produced from the flowers of the ground-ivy, which they 
have nibbled when in quest of their morning food, a time at 
which the whole island is covered with dew. After this, they 
say, when the fogs are dispersed by the sun, the dust adheres 
to their wet coats, and the ladanum is formed, which is after- 
wards taken off of them with a comb. 
There are some authors who give to the plant of Cyprus, 
from which it is made, the name of leda ; and hence it is that 
soft to the fingers, the only adventitious substances in which are a little 
sand and a few hairs. 
2* See B. vi. c. 32. 
25 For some further account of this substance, see B. xxix. c. 10. Filthy 
as it was, the oesypum, or sweat and grease of sheep, was used by the 
Roman ladies as one of their most choice cosmetics. Ovid, in his "Art of 
Love," more than once inveighs asrainst the use of it. 
