136 
PLINY'S NATUEAL HISTOET. 
[Book XII. 
to the floor; it is very agreeable, but is apt to cause an 
oppression of the head, though unattended with pain ; it iat 
used for promoting sleep in persons when ill. For these 
branches of commerce, they have opened the city of CarroD,^^ 
which serves as an entrepot, and from which place they were 
formerly in the habit of proceeding to Gabba, at a distance of 
twenty days' journey, and thence to Palaestina, in Syria. But 
at a later period, as Juba informs us, they began to take the 
road, for the purposes of this trajfic, to Charax^* and the 
kingdom of the Parthians. For my own part, it would appear 
to me that they were in the habit of importing these commo- 
dities among the Persians, even before they began to convey 
them to Syria or Egypt ; at least Herodotus bears testimony to 
that effect, when he states that the Arabians paid a yearly 
tribute of one thousand talents, in frankincense, to the kings 
of Persia. 
Prom Syria they bring back storax,^^ which, burnt upon 
the hearth, by its powerful smell dispels that loathing of their 
own perfumes with which these people are affected. For in 
general there are no kinds of wood in use among them, except 
those which are odoriferous; indeed, the Sabaei are in the 
habit of cooking their food with incense wood, while others, 
again, employ that of the myrrh tree ; and hence, the smoke 
and smells that pervade their cities and villages are no other 
than the very same which, with us, proceed from the altars. 
For the purpose of qualifying this powerful smell, they burn 
storax in goat-skins, and so fumigate their dwellings. So true 
it is, that there is no pleasure to be found, but what the con- 
tinual enjoyment of it begets loathing. They also burn this i 
substance to drive away the serpents, which are extremely i 
numerous in the forests which bear the odoriferous trees. 
CHAP. 41. (18.) — WHY AEABIA WAS CALLED HAPPY*" 
Arabia produces neither cinnamon nor cassia; and this is 
the country styled Happy" Arabia ! False and ungrateful 
does she prove herself in the adoption of this surname, which 
she would imply to have been received from the gods above ; 
whereas, in reality, she is indebted for it far more to the gods 
33 See B. V. c. 21. 34 gee B. vi. c. 30. 
^ See c. 55 of the present Book. 
