[ 4°8 ] 
XL. Some Ohfervations upon Myrrh, made in Abyfliniaj 
in the Tear 1771? and fent to William Hunter, A/. Z). 
with Specimens^ in February, 1775. James Bruce, 
Efq- 
Redde, June i, aiicients, aiid particularly Diosco- 
-S' RinES, have fpokcn of myrrh in fuch 
a manner, as to leave us no alternative, but -to fuppofe 
either that they have defcribed a drug which they had 
never feen ; or, that the drug feen and defcribed by them 
is abfolutely unknown to modern naturalifts and phyli- 
cians. The Arabs, however, who form the link of 
the chain between the Greek phylicians and ours, in 
whofe country the myrrh was produced, and whofe lan- 
guage gave it its name, have left us undeniable evidence, 
that what we know by the name of myrrh, is in nothing 
different from the myrrh of the ancients, growing in the 
fame countries from which it was brought formerly to 
Greece ; that is, from the Eaft coaft of Arabia Felix, bor- 
dering on the Indian Ocean, and that low land in Abyf- 
finia on the South-eaft of the Red-fea, included nearly 
between the 12th and 13th degree of North latitude, 
and limited on the Weft by a meridian paffing through 
the ifland Maflbwa; and on the Eaft by another, paffing 
through Cape Guardfoy, without the ftraits of Bab el 
Mandel, This country the Greeks knew by the name 
of 
