growing only in Yemen and on the hills, and in re- spect to its leaves and fruit resembling myrtle; a de- scription which has been thought (Sprengel, //ist. rei bot. i, 12, 257) to apply very well to tlie Ami/ris katab (Forskal, Flor. p. 80), or (Gesch. d. Botan. i, 10) to the Amyris kafid {VoY&\i&\ p. 19), or even to the Jnnipirus thurifera (Martins, Pharmakogn. p. 384). Niebuhr, in his JJescript. of Aralia, ii, 350, says, " We could learn nothing of the tree from which the incense distils, and Forskal does not mention it. I know that it is to be found in a part of Iladramaut [comp. AVellsted, i, 190; ii, 333], where it is called olihan. But the Arabians hold their own incense in no estimation, and make use of that only which comes from India. Probalily Ara- bian incense was so called b_v the ancients l)ecause tlic Arabs traded in it, and conveyed it from India to the ports of Egypt and Syria." The Hebrews imported their frankincense from Saba (Isa. Ix, 0 ; Jer. vi, 20) ; but it is remarkable that at present the Arabian lihanum, or oliljanum, is of a very inferior kind, and tliat the finest frankincense imported into Turkey comes through Arabia from the islands of the Indian Archipelago. The Arabian plant may possibly have degenerated, or it may be that, the finest kind -was always procured from India, as it certainly -vvas in the time of Dioscor- ides. Burckhardt, in his Travels in Nubia, p. 262, ob- serves : "The liban is a species of gum, collected by the Bedouin Arabs, who inhabit tlie deserts between Kordofan and Shilluk, on the road to Sennaar. It is said to exude from the stem of a tree, in the same manner as gum arable. It is sold in small thin cakes, is of a dull gray color, very brittle, and has a strong smell. The country people use it as a perfume, but it is dear. It is much in demand for the inhal itants of Taka, and all the tribes between the Nile and the IJed Sea. It is exported to Souakin ; the Cairo merchants receive it from Jidda. At Cairo it is considered as the frankincense, and is called incense. There are two sorts, one of which is much coarser than the other. It is also imported into Jidda from Souahel, on the eastern coast of Africa, beyond Cape Gardafui." Col- onel James Bird like^nise observes: "There are two kinds of frankincense, or loban, one of wliich is the produce of Hadramaut, and is collected by the Bedouin Arabs, the other is brought b}- the Sumalis frf m Afri- ca. The former, which is met witli in small globular lumps, has a tinge of green in its color; but the other, which is more like common resin in appearance, is of a bright yellow appearance. AVhat the Sumalis im- port and name loban mati is less fragrant than the Araliian kind; it is therefore preferred for chewing, but the last is more used for fumigation. Both kinds are exported by the Hindu merchants to India, along with gum, myrrh, and small portions of honey collect- ed in the country near Aden." The Arabs, says Eo- senmiiller (^Altirthumsk. iv, 153), call the most excel- lent species of frankincense cnndhur ; and that this is an Indian production appears from Colebrooke's oliser- vation (^Asiatic Researches, ix, 377), that in Hindu writings on medicaments an odorous gum is called knndia-a,v;h'vA\, according to the Indian grammarians, is a Sanscrit ■word. They unanimously state it to be the produce of a tree called sallaki, and in the vulgar language salai. Wlien the bark is pierced there ex- udes a gum of a whitish or j-ellowish color, externally powdery from friction, but. internallj' pellucid, very brittle, with a balsamic or resinous ^mell, and a some- what acrid taste; it burns with a clear lilaze and ;.n agreeable odor. The tree grows in the Indian moun- tains, and is one of considerable size, somewhat re- sembling the sumach, and belonging to the same nat- ural family, tei-ebinlhacen, or turpentine-bearing trees (see Ainslie, ^[at. Ind. i, 205). It is known to bota- nists by the name of Bostcellia serrata or tl/urijera (Poxburgh, Fbira Indira, iii, 388); it has pinnated leaves, tlie folioles of which are pubescent, ovate acu- minate and serrate, and very small flowers disposed in
FRANKS, CONVERSION OF 657
FRATERNITY
simple axillarj' racemes. Hy incisions in the bark a veiy odorous gum is obtained, whicli tlie spice-mer- chants of London recognised as olibanum or frankin- cense although it had been sent to England as an en- tirely different species of perfume (sec Oken, Lehrb. d. Botan. II, ii, C87 sq. ; Geiger, Pharmac. Butun. ii, 1'204 sq.). The Boswellia serrata grows to a height of forty
BoswcUia Serrata, with enlarged view of the flower and cap- sule.
feet, and is found in Amboyna and the mountainous districts of India. Another species, the B. papi/rifera, occurs on the east coast of Africa, in Abyssinia, about 1000 feet al)0ve the sea-level, on bare limestone rocks, to which the base of the stem is attached by a thick mass of vegetable substance, sending roots to a pro- digious depth in the rock}' crevices (Hogg's Veff. King- dom, p. 249). Its resin, the olibanum of Africa and Arabia, usually occurs in commerce in brownish mass- es, and in yellow-tinted drops or "tears," not so large as the Indian variety. The last is still burnt in Hin- du temples under the names of " rhunda" and " lu- ban" — the latter evidently identical with the Hebrew lebonah; and it is exported from Bombay in consider- able quantities for the use of Greek and Roman Cath- olic churches. From Cant, iv, 14 it has been inferred that the frankincense-tree grew in Palestine (compare Athen. iii, 101), and especiallj^ on Mount Lebanon. The connection between the names, however, goes for nothing (Lebonah, Lebanon) ; the word may be used for aromatic plants generallj' (Gesen. Lex. s. v.) ; and the rhetorical flourishes of Florus (Epit. iii, 6, "thuris silvas") and Ausonius {Mono.fyl. p. 110) are of little avail against the fVict that the tree is not at present found in Palestine. (See Celsii Ilieroh. i, 231 ; Bod. a Stapel, comment, in Theophr. p. 976 sq. ; Gesenius, Ileb. Thesaur. p. 741 ; Penny Cyclop, s. v. Olibanum and Bos- wellia Thurifera). See Aromatics.