154 
ON  THE  DRUGS  OBSERVED  AT  ADEN,  ARABIA. 
coveting  the  precious  gum.*  Three  baggalas  are  annually 
freighted  from  Marbat  to  Bombay  with  an  entire  cargo  of  the 
Arabian  frankincense,  which  realizes  a  higher  price  in  the  market 
than  any  of  the  qualities  exported  from  Africa.f 
*  They  need  not  to  set  any  keepers  for  to  looke  unto  those  Trees  that  be 
cut,  for  no  man  will  rob  from  his  fellow  if  he  might,  so  just  and  true  they  be 
in  Arabia.  Bat  beleeve  me,  at  Alexandria  where  Frankincense  is  tried,  re- 
fined, and  made  for  sale,  men  cannot  looke  surely  ynough  to  their  shops  and 
work-houses,  but  they  will  be  robbed.  The  workman  that  is  emploied  about 
it,  is  all  naked,  save  th.it  hee  hath  a  paire  of  trouses  or  breeches  to  cover  his 
shame,  and  those  are  sowed  up  and  sealed  too,  forfeare  of  thrusting  any  into 
them.  Hoodwinked  he  is  sure  ynough  for  seeing  the  way  too  and  fro,  and 
hath  a  thicke  coife  or  maske  about  his  head,  for  doubt  that  hee  should  bestow 
any  in  mouth  or  eares.  And  when  these  workmen  bee  let  foorth  againe,  they 
be  stripped  starke  naked,  as  ever  they  were  borne,  and  sent  away.  Whereby 
we  may  see,  that  the  rigour  of  justice  cannot  strike  so  great  feare  into  our 
theeves  here,  and  make  us  so  secure  to  keep  our  owne,  as  among  the  Saba> 
ans,  the  bare  reverence  and  religion  of  those  woods." — Pliny's  Natural  His- 
tory, Holland's  translation.  Loud.,  1601,  tome  i.,  p.  367. 
f  Specimens  of  each  of  the  five  kinds  of  Olibanum  above  enumerated, 
have  been  received  from  the  auihor : — 
No.  1,  called  Lubdn  Mattee,  is  very  dissimilar  to  any  resin  known  in  Eng- 
land as  Olibanum.  It  is  in  stalaclitic  masses,  which  have  evidently  been 
the  produce  of  a  very  copious  flow  of  the  peculiar  secretion  of  the  tree. 
These  pieces,  whose  weight  varies  from  one  to  three  ounces,  are  in  parts 
white  or  yellowish,  and  highly  opaque,  in  other  pails  brightly  transparent. 
A  thin,  brown,  paper-like  bark  is  occasionally  adherent.  The  Lubdn  Mattee 
possesses  a  strong,  agreeable,  somewhat  citron-like  odor  and  but  little  taste. 
It  is  closely  allied  in  ils  characters  to  the  Tacamaque  jaune  huileuse  A.  of  Gui- 
bourt (Histoire  des  Drogues,  tome  iii.,  p.  484),  which  is  the  Besina  anime  of 
the  German  pharmacologists.  It  comes  also  very  close  to  the  Tacamaque 
jaune  huileuse  B.  of  Guibourt,  a  resin  of  unknown  origin,  in  scraped  pieces, 
which  is  sometimes  sold  in  London  as  Elemi.  It  also  nearly  approaches,  as 
Professor  Guibourt  informs  me,  the  Resine  deMadagascar  of  his  Histoire  des 
Drogues,  tome  iii.,  p.  480. 
No.  3,  Lubdn  Malcur  is  Olibanum  in  separate,  opaque,  yellowish,  rather 
small  tears,  to  which  b^rk  is  frequently  attached. 
Nos.  4  and  5,  Lubdn  Berbcra,  and  the  Olibanum  collected  in  the  southern 
and  south-eastern  districts  of  Arabia,  consists  of  tears  closely  agglomerated 
together  into  darkish  masses,  many  of  the  tears  having  a  vitreous  appearance 
when  fractured. 
Of  Lubdn  Hunkur  (No.  2),  asmall  sample  has  been  received.— D.  H. 
(To  be  continued.) 
