Hasty and general assumption
that the Indian resin was the olibanum of commerce; insomuch that the very
existence of Arabian olibanum came to be treated as a matter of doubt in
some respectable books, and that down to a very recent date.
In the Atlas to Bruce's Travels is figured a plant under the name of
Angoua, which the Abyssinians believed to produce true olibanum, and
which Bruce says did really produce a gum resembling it.
In 1837 Lieut. Cruttenden of the Indian Navy saw the frankincense tree of
Arabia on a journey inland from Merbat, and during the ensuing year the
trees of the Sumali country were seen, and partially described by
Kempthorne, and Vaughan of the same service, and by Cruttenden himself.
Captain Haines also in his report of the Survey of the Hadhramaut coast in
1843-1844[2] speaks, apparently as an eyewitness, of the frankincense
trees about Dhafar as extremely numerous, and adds that from 3000 to
10,000 maunds were annually exported "from Merbat and Dhafar." "3 to 10"
is vague enough; but as the kind of maund is not specified it is vaguer
still. Maunds differ as much as livres Francais and livres sterling.
In 1844 and 1846 Dr. Carter also had opportunities of examining olibanum
trees on this coast, which he turned to good account, sending to
Government cuttings, specimens, and drawings, and publishing a paper on
the subject in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the R. As.
