Publishing a paper on
the subject in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the R. As. Society
(1847).
[Illustration: The Harvest of Frankincense in Arabia. Facsimile of an
engraving in Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle (1575), reproduced from
the Bible Educator.[3]]
But neither Dr. Carter's paper and specimens, nor the previous looser
notices of the naval officers, seemed to attract any attention, and men of
no small repute went on repeating in their manuals the old story about
Indian olibanum. Dr. G. Birdwood however, at Bombay, in the years
following 1859, took up the subject with great zeal and intelligence,
procuring numerous specimens of the Sumali trees and products; and his
monograph of the genus Boswellia in the Linnaean Transactions (read
April 1869), to which this note is very greatly indebted, is a most
interesting paper, and may be looked on, I believe, as embodying the most
correct knowledge as yet attainable. The species as ranked in his table
are the following:
[Illustration: Boswellia Frereana (Birdw.).
1. Boswellia Carterii (Birdw.), including the Arabian tree of
Dhafar, and the larger variety called Mohr Madau by the Sumalis.
2. B. Bhau-dajiana (Birdw.), Mohr A'd of the Sumalis.
3. B. papyrifera (Richard). Abyssinian species.
4. B. thurifera (Colebr.), see p. 396 supra.
5. B. Frereana (Birdw.), Yegar of the Sumalis - named after
Mr. William Frere, Member of Council at Bombay. No. 2 was named from Bhau
Daji, a very eminent Hindu scholar and physician at Bombay (Birdw.).]
No. 1 produces the Arabian olibanum, and Nos. 1 and 2 together the bulk of
the olibanum exported from the Sumali coast under the name Luban-Shehri.
Both are said to give an inferior kind besides, called L. Bedawi. No. 3
is, according to Birdwood, the same as Bruce's Angoua. No. 5 is
distinctly a new species, and affords a highly fragrant resin sold under
the name of Luban Meti.
Bombay is now the great mart of frankincense. The quantity exported thence
in 1872-1873 was 25,000 cwt., of which nearly one quarter went to China.
Frankincense when it first exudes is milky white; whence the name "White
Incense" by which Polo speaks of it. And the Arabic name luban
apparently refers to milk. The Chinese have so translated, calling
Ju-siang or Milk-perfume.
Polo, we see, says the tree was like a fir tree; and it is remarkable that
a Chinese Pharmacology quoted by Bretschneider says the like, which looks
as if their information came from a common source. And yet I think Polo's
must have been oral. One of the meanings of Luban, from the Kamus, is
Pinus (Freytag). This may have to do with the error. Dr. Birdwood, in a
paper Cassells' Bible Educator, has given a copy of a remarkable wood
engraving from Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle (1575), representing
the collection of Arabian olibanum, and this through his kind intervention
I am able to reproduce here.
