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SELECT SPECIMENS
OF
NATURAL HISTORY,
COLLECTED IN
Travels to discover the Source of the NILE,
IN
EGYPT, ARABIA, ABYSSINIA, AND NUBIA.
[Illustration:
ΑΙΕΙ ΦΕΡΕΙ ΤΙ
ΛΙΒΥΗ ΚΑΙΝΟΝ
_Arist. Hist. Anim. Lib. 8._]
VOL. V.
“AND HE SPAKE OF TREES, FROM THE CEDAR-TREE THAT IS IN LEBANON, EVEN
UNTO THE HYSSOP THAT SPRINGETH OUT OF THE WALL: HE SPAKE ALSO OF
BEASTS, AND OF FOWL, AND OF CREEPING THINGS, AND OF FISHES.”
1 KINGS, chap. iv. ver. 33.
EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY J. RUTHVEN, FOR G. G. J. AND J. ROBINSON,
PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON.
M.DCC.XC.
CONTENTS
OF THE
FIFTH VOLUME.
INTRODUCTION, P. i
OF PLANTS, SHRUBS, AND TREES.
_Papyrus,_ P 1
_Balessan, Balm, or Balsam_, 16
_Sassa, Myrrh, Opocalpasum_, 27
_Ergett Y’dimmo_, 34
_Ergett el Krone_, 35
_Ensete_, 36
_Kol-quall_, 41
_Rack_, 44
_Gir Gir, or Gesh el Aube_, 47
_Kantuffa_, 49
_Gaguedi_, 52
_Wanzey_, 54
_Farek, or Bauhinia Acuminata_, 57
_Kuara_, 65
_Walkuffa_, 67
_Wooginoos, or Brucea Antidysenterica_, 69
_Cusso, or Bankesia Abyssinica_, 73
_Teff_, 76
OF QUADRUPEDS.
_Rhinoceros_, 85
_Hyæna_, 107
_Jerboa_, 121
_Fennec_, 128
_Ashkoko_, 139
_Booted Lynx_, 146
OF BIRDS.
_Nisser, or Golden Eagle_, 155
_Black Eagle_, 159
_Rachamah_, 163
_Erkoom_, 169
_Moroc_, 178
_Sheregrig_, 182
_Waalia_, 186
_Tsaltsalya, or Fly_, 188
_El Adda_, 193
_Cerastes, or Horned Viper_, 198
_Binny_, 211
_Caretta, or Sea Tortoise_, 215
_Pearls_, 219
MAPS.
1. _General Map._
2. _Itinerary from_ Gondar _to the Source of the_ Nile.
3. _Chart of_ Solomon’s _Voyage to_ Tarshish.
INTRODUCTION.
As it has been my endeavour, throughout this history, to leave nothing
unexplained that may assist the reader in understanding the different
subjects that have been treated in the course of it, I think myself
obliged to say a few words concerning the manner of arranging this
Appendix. With regard to the Natural History, it must occur to every
one, that, however numerous and respectable they may be who have
dedicated themselves entirely to this study, they bear but a very
small proportion to those who, for amusement or instruction, seek the
miscellaneous and general occurrences of life that ordinarily compose a
series of travels.
By presenting the two subjects promiscuously, I was apprehensive of
incommoding and disgusting both species of readers. Every body that
has read Tournefort, and some other authors of merit of that kind,
must be sensible how unpleasant it is to have a very rapid, well-told,
interesting narrative, concerning the arts, government, or ruins of
Corinth, Athens, or Ephesus, interrupted by the appearance of a nettle
or daffodil, from some particularity which they may possess, curious
and important in the eye of a botanist, but invisible and indifferent
to an ordinary beholder.
To prevent this, I have placed what belongs to Natural History in one
volume or appendix, and in so doing I hope to meet the approbation
of my scientific botanical readers, by laying the different subjects
all together before them, without subjecting them to the trouble of
turning over different books to get at any one of them. The figures,
landscapes, and a few other plates of this kind, are illustrations
of what immediately passes in the page; these descriptions seldom
occupy more than a few lines, and therefore such plates cannot be more
ornamentally or usefully placed than opposite to the page which treats
of them.
Some further consideration was necessary in placing the maps, and the
Appendix appeared to me to be by far the most proper part for them.
The maps, whether such as are general of the country, or those adapted
to serve particular itineraries, should always be laid open before the
reader, till he has made himself perfectly master of the bearings and
distances of the principal rivers, mountains, or provinces where the
scene of action is then laid. Maps that fold lie generally but one way,
and are mostly of strong paper, so that when they are doubled by an
inattentive hand, contrary to the original fold they got at binding,
they break, and come asunder in quarters and square pieces, the map is
destroyed, and the book ever after incomplete; whereas, even if this
misfortune happens to a map placed in the Appendix, it may either be
taken out and joined anew, or replaced at very little expence by a
fresh map from the bookseller.
I shall detain the reader but a few minutes with what I have further
to say concerning the particular subjects of Natural History of which
I have treated. The choice I know, though it may meet with the warmest
concurrence from one set of readers, will not perhaps be equally
agreeable to the taste of others. This I am heartily sorry for. My
endeavour and wish is to please them all, if it were possible, as it is
not.
The first subject I treat of is trees, shrubs, or plants; and in the
selecting of them I have preferred those which, having once been
considered as subjects of consequence by the ancients, and treated
largely of by them, are now come, from want of the advantage of
drawing, lapse of time, change of climate, alteration of manners, or
accident befallen the inhabitants of a country, to be of doubtful
existence and uncertain description; the ascertaining of many of these
is necessary to the understanding the classics.
It is well known to every one the least versant in this part of Natural
History, what a prodigious revolution has happened in the use of drugs,
dyes, and gums, since the time of Galen, by the introduction of those
Herculean medicines drawn from minerals. The discovery of the new
world, besides, has given us vegetable medicines nearly as active and
decisive as those of minerals themselves. Many found in the new world
grow equally in the old, from which much confusion has arisen in the
history of each, that will become inextricable in a few generations,
unless attended to by regular botanists, assisted by attentive and
patient draughts-men ignorant of system, or at least not slaves to
it, who set down upon paper what with their eyes they see does exist,
without amusing themselves with imagining, according to rules they have
themselves made, what it regularly should be. One drawing of this
kind, painfully and attentively made, has more merit, and promotes true
knowledge more certainly, than a hundred horti sicci which constantly
produce imaginary monsters, and throw a doubt upon the whole. The
modern and more accurate system of botany has fixed its distinctions
of genus and species upon a variety of such fine parts naturally so
fragil, that drying, spreading, and pressing with the most careful
hands, must break away and destroy some of those parts. These deficient
in one plant, exiting in another in all other respects exactly similar,
are often, I fear, construed into varieties, or different species, and
well if the misfortune goes no farther. They are precisely of the same
bad consequence as an inaccurate drawing, where these parts are left
out through inattention, or design.
After having bestowed my first consideration upon these that make
a principal figure in ancient history, which are either not at all
or imperfectly known now, my next attention has been to those which
have their uses in manufactures, medicine, or are used as food in the
countries I am describing.
The next I have treated are the plants, or the varieties of plants,
unknown, whether in genus or species. In these I have dealt sparingly
in proportion to the knowledge I yet have acquired in this subject,
which is every day increasing, and appears perfectly attainable.
The history of the birds and beasts is the subject which occupies the
next place in this Appendix; and the rule I follow here, is to give
the preference to such of each kind as are mentioned in scripture, and
concerning which doubts have arisen. A positive precept that says, Thou
shalt not eat such beast, or such bird, is absolutely useless, as long
as it is unknown what that bird and what that animal is.
Many learned men have employed themselves with success upon these
topics, yet much remains still to do; for it has generally happened,
that those perfectly acquainted with the language in which the
scriptures were written, have never travelled nor seen the animals
of Judea, Palestine, or Arabia; and again, such as have travelled in
these countries, and seen the animals in question, have been either
not at all, or but superficially acquainted with the original language
of scripture. It has been my earnest desire to employ the advantage I
possess in both these requisites, to throw as much light as possible
upon the doubts that have arisen. I hope I have done this freely,
fairly, and candidly; if I have at all succeeded, I have obtained my
reward.
As for the fishes and other marine productions of the Red Sea, my
industry has been too great for my circumstances. I have by me above
300 articles from the Arabian gulf alone, all of equal merit with
those specimens which I have here laid before the public. Though I
have selected a very few articles only, and these perhaps not the most
curious, yet as they are connected with the trade of the Red Sea as
it was carried on in ancient times, and may again be resumed, and as
of this I have treated professedly, I have preferred these, as having
a classical foundation, to many others more curious and less known.
Engraving in England has advanced rapidly towards perfection, and the
prices, as we may suppose, have kept proportion with the improvement.
My small fortune, already impaired with the expence of the journey,
will not, without doing injustice to my family, bear the additional
one, of publishing these numerous articles, which, however desirable
it might be, would amount to a sum which in me it would not be thought
prudent to venture.
If Egypt had been a new, late, and extraordinary creation, the gift
of the Nile in these latter times, as some modern philosophers have
pretended, the least thing we could have expected would have been to
find some new and extraordinary plants accompany it, very different
in figure and parts from those of ancient times, made by the _old
unphilosophical_ way, the _fiat_ of the Creator of the universe. But
just the contrary has happened. Egypt hath no trees, shrubs, or plants
peculiar to it. All are brought thither from Syria, Arabia, Africa,
and India; and these are so far from being the gift of the Nile, as
scarcely to accustom themselves to suffer the quantity of water that
for five months covers the land of Egypt by the inundation of that
river.
Even many of those that the necessities of particular times have
brought thither to supply wants with which they could not dispense,
and those which curious hands have brought from foreign countries
are not planted at random; for they would not grow in Egypt, but in
chosen places formerly artificially raised above level, for gardens,
and pleasure ground, where they are at this day watered by machinery;
or upon banks above the calishes, which though near the water, are
yet above the level of its annual inundation. Such is the garden of
Mattareah, sometimes filled with exotic plants from all the countries
around, from the veneration or superstition, pilgrims and dervishies,
the only travellers of the east, have for that spot, the supposed abode
of the Virgin Mary when she fled into Egypt, sometimes, as at present,
so neglected as to have scarce one foreign or curious plant in it.
The first kind of these adventitious productions, and the oldest
inhabitant of Egypt brought there for use, is the sycamore, called
Giumez[1] by the Arabs, which from its size, the facility with which
it is sawn into the thinnest planks, and the largeness of these planks
corresponding to the immense size of the tree, was most usefully
adapted to the great demand they then had for mummy-chests, or coffins,
which are made of this tree only: in order to add to its value, we may
mention another supposed quality, its _incorruptibility_, very capable
of giving it a preference, as coinciding with the ideas which led the
Egyptians to those fantastic attempts of making the _body eternal_.
This last property, I suppose, is purely imaginary, for though it
be true, tradition says, that all the mummy-chests, which have been
found from former ages, were made of sycamore, though the same is the
persuasion of latter times, and the fact is so far proven by all the
mummy-chests now found being of that wood, yet I will not take upon me
to vouch, that incorruptibility is a quality of this particular tree.
I believe that seasoned elm, oak, or ash, perhaps even fir, laid in
the dry sands of Egypt perfectly screened from moisture, and defended
from the outward air, as all mummy-chests are, would likewise appear
incorruptible; and my reason is, that having got made, while at Cairo,
a case for a telescope of sycamore plank, I buried it in my garden
after I came home from my travels, so as to leave it covered by half
a foot of earth; in less than four years it was entirely putrid and
rotten. And another telescope case of the cedar of Lebanon appeared
much less decayed, though even in this last there were evident signs
of corruption. But even suppose it true, that these planks have been
found incorruptible, a doubt may still arise, whether they do not owe
this quality to a kind of varnish of resinous materials with which I
have seen almost all the mummy-chests covered, and to which materials
the preservation of the mummy itself is in part certainly owing. The
sycamore is a native of that low warm stripe of country between the
Red Sea and mountains of Abyssinia; we saw a number of very fine ones
before we came to Taranta; they are also in Syria about Sidon, but
inferior in size to the former; they do not seem to thrive in Arabia,
for want of moisture.
All the other vegetable productions of Egypt have been in a fluctuating
state from one year to another. We find them in Prosper Alpinus, and by
his authority we seek for them in that country. In Egypt we find them
no more; through neglect, they are rotten and gone, but we meet them
flourishing in Nubia, Abyssinia, and Arabia Felix, and these are the
countries whence the curious first brought them, and from which, by
some accident similar to the first, they may again appear in Egypt.
Prosper Alpinus’s work then, so far from being a collection of plants
and trees of Egypt, may be said to be a treatise of plants that are
not in Egypt, but by accident; they are gleanings of natural history
from Syria, Arabia, Nubia, Abyssinia, Persia, Malabar, and Indostan,
of which, as far as I could discern or discover, seven species only
remained when I was in Egypt, mostly trees of such a growth as to be
out of the power of every thing but the ax.
The plant that I shall now speak of, the Papyrus, is a strong proof
of this, and is a remarkable instance of the violent changes these
subjects have undergone in a few ages. It was at the first the
repository of learning and of record; it was the vehicle of knowledge
from one nation to another; its uses were so extended, that it came to
be even the food of man, and yet we are now disputing what this plant
was, and what was its figure, and whether or not it is to be found in
Egypt.
A gentleman[2] at the head of the literary world, who from his early
years has dedicated himself to the study of the theory of this science,
and at a riper age has travelled through the world in the more
agreeable pursuit of the practical part of it, hath assured me, that,
unless from bad drawings, he never had an idea of what this plant was
till I first gave him a very fine specimen. The Count de Caylus says,
that having heard there was a specimen of this plant in Paris, he used
his utmost endeavours to find it, but when brought to him, it appeared
to be a cyperus of a very common, well-known kind. With my own hands,
not without some labour and risk, I collected specimens from Syria,
from the river Jordan, from two different places in Upper and Lower
Egypt, from the lakes Tzana and Gooderoo in Abyssinia; and it was with
the utmost pleasure I found they were in every particular intrinsically
the same, without any variation or difference, from what this plant has
been described by the ancients; only I thought that those of Egypt, the
middle of the two extremes, were stronger, fairer, and fully a foot
taller than those in Syria and Abyssinia.
[Illustration: _Papyrus_
_London. Published Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1790 by G. Robinson & Co._]
OF PLANTS, SHRUBS, AND TREES.
PAPYRUS.
The papyrus is a cyperus, called by the Greeks Biblus. There is no
doubt but it was early known in Egypt, since we learn from Horus
Apollo, the Egyptians, wishing to describe the antiquity of their
origin, figured a faggot, or bundle of papyrus, as an emblem of the
food they first subsisted on, when the use of wheat was not yet known
in that country. But I should rather apprehend that another plant,
hereafter described, and not the papyrus, was what was substituted for
wheat, for though the Egyptians sucked the honey or sweetness from the
root of the papyrus, it does not appear that any part of this cyperus
could be used for food, nor is it so at this day, though the Ensete,
the plant to which I allude, might, without difficulty, have been used
for bread in early ages before the discovery of wheat; in several
provinces it holds its place at this day.
The papyrus seems to me to have early come down from Ethiopia, and
to have been used in Upper Egypt immediately after the disuse of
hieroglyphics, and the first paper made from this plant was in Seide.
By Seide was anciently meant Upper Egypt, and it is so called to this
day; and the Saitic, probably the oldest language known in Egypt after
the Ethiopic, still subsists, being written in the first character that
succeeded the hieroglyphics in the valley or cultivated part of Egypt.
Early, however, as the papyrus was known, it does not appear to me
to have ever been a plant that could have existed in, or, as authors
have said, been proper to the river Nile; its head is too heavy, and
in a plain country the wind must have had too violent a hold of it.
The stalk is small and feeble, and withal too tall, the root too short
and slender to stay it against the violent pressure of the wind and
current, therefore I do constantly believe it never could be a plant
growing in the river Nile itself, or in any very deep or rapid river.
Pliny[3], who seems to have considered and known it perfectly in all
its parts, does not pretend that it ever grew in the body of the Nile
itself, but in the calishes or places where the Nile had overflowed
and was stagnant, and where the water was not above two cubits high.
This observation, I believe, holds good universally, at least it did
so wherever I have seen this plant, either in the overflowed ground in
the Seide, or Upper Egypt, or in Abyssinia where it never grew in the
bed of a river, but generally in some small stream that issued out of,
or into some large stagnant lake or abandoned water-course. It did not
even trust itself to the weight of the wave of the deepest part of
that lake when agitated by the wind, but it grew generally about the
borders of it, as far as the depth of the water was within a yard.
Pliny says it grew likewise in Syria, and there I saw it first, before
I went into Egypt; it was in the river Jordan, between the situation of
the ancient city Paneas, which still bears its name, and the lake of
Tiberias, which is probably the lake Pliny alludes to, where he says
it grew, and with it the calamus odoratus, one of the adventitious
plants brought thither formerly by curious men (as I conjecture) which
now exists no more, either in Syria or Egypt. It was on the left hand
of the bridge called the Bridge of the Sons of Jacob. The river where
it grew was two feet nine inches deep, and it was then increased with
rain. It grew likewise, as Guilandinus[4] tells us, at the confluence
of the Tigris and the Euphrates. I apprehend that it was not thus
propagated into Asia and Greece till the use of it, as manufactured
into paper, was first known.
When that was still admits of some difficulty. Pliny says that Varro
writes it came not into general use till after the conquest of Egypt
by Alexander; yet it is plain from Anacreon[5], Alcæus, Æschylus, and
the comic poets, that it was known in their time. Plato and Aristotle
speak of it also, so do Herodotus and Theophrastus[6]. We also know it
was of old in use among the Ionians, who probably brought it in very
early days directly from Egypt. Numa, too, who lived 300 years before
Alexander, is said to have left a number of books wrote on the papyrus,
which a long time after his death were found at Rome.
All this might very well be; the writers of those early ages were
but few, and those that then were, had all of them, more or less,
connection by their learning with Egypt; it was to them only Egypt was
known, and if they learned to write there, it was not improbable, that
from thence too they adopted the materials most commodious for writing
upon.
With Aristotle began the first arrangement of a library. Alexander’s
conquest, and the building of Alexandria, laid open Egypt, its trade
and learning, to the world. Papyrus then, or the paper made from it,
was the only materials made use of for writing upon. A violent desire
of amassing books, and a library, immediately followed, which we may
safely attribute to the example set by Aristotle.
The Ptolemies, and the kings of Pergamus, contended who should make the
largest collection. The Ptolemies, masters of Egypt and of the papyrus,
availed themselves of this monopoly to hinder the multiplication of
books in Greece. The other princes probably smuggled this plant, and
propagated it wherever it would grow out of Egypt. And Eumenes king of
Pergamus set about bringing to perfection the manufacture of parchment,
which, long before, the Ionians had used from the scarcity of paper;
for whatever resemblance there might be in names, or whatever may be
inferred from them, writing upon skins or parchment was much more
ancient than any city or state in Greece and in use probably before
Greece was inhabited. The Jews we know made use of it in the earliest
ages. At this very time which we are now speaking of, we learn from
Josephus[7], that the elders, by order of the high priest, carried a
copy of the law to Ptolemy Philadelphus in letters of gold upon skins,
the pieces of which were so artfully put together that the joinings did
not appear.
The ancients divided this plant into three parts, the head and the
small part of the stalk were cut off, then the woody part, or bottom,
and the root connected with it, and there remained the middle. All
these had separate uses. Pliny[8] says the upper part, which supported
the large top itself, with the flowers upon it, was of no sort of
use but to adorn the temples, and crown the statues of the gods; but
it would seem that it was in use likewise for crowning men of merit.
Plutarch[9] says, that Agesilaus preferred being crowned with that to
any other, on account of its simplicity, and that parting from the king
he had sought to be crowned with this as a favour, which was granted
him. Athenæus[10], on the contrary, laughed at those that mixt roses
in the crown of papyrus, and he says it is as ridiculous as mixing
roses with a crown of garlic. The reason, however, he gives does not
hold, for papyrus itself smells no more of mud, as he supposes, than
a rose-bush; nay, the flower of the papyrus has something agreeable
in its smell, though not so much so as roses. If he had said that the
head of the papyrus resembled withered grass or hay, and made a bad
contrast with the richness and beauty of the rose, he had said well.
But notwithstanding what Pliny has written, the head of the papyrus was
employed, not only to make crowns for statues of the gods, but also to
make cables for ships. We are told that Antigonus made use of nothing
else for ropes and cables to his fleets, before the use of spartum, or
bent-grass, was known, which, though very little better, still serves
that purpose in small ships on the coast of Provence to this day.
The top of the papyrus was likewise used for sewing and caulking the
vessels, by forcing it into the seams, and afterwards covering it with
pitch.
Pliny[11] tells us, that the whole plant together was used for making
boats, a piece of the acacia tree being put in the bottom to serve as
the keel, to which plants were joined, being first sewed together, then
gathered up at stem and stern, and the ends of the plant tied fast
there, “Conseritur bibula Memphitis cymba papyro;” and this is the only
boat they still have in Abyssinia, which they call Tancoa, and from
the use of these it is that Isaiah describes the nations, probably
the Egyptians, upon whom the vengeance of God was speedily to fall. I
imagine also that the junks of the Red Sea, said to be of leather, were
first built with papyrus and covered with skins. In these the Homerites
trafficked with their friends the Sabeans across the mouth of the Red
Sea, but they can never persuade me, however generally and confidently
it has been asserted, that vessels of this kind could have lived an
hour upon the Indian ocean.
The bottom, root, or woody part of this plant, was likewise of several
uses before it turned absolutely hard; it was chewed in the manner of
liquorice, having a considerable quantity of sweet juice in it. This we
learn from Dioscorides; it was, I suppose, chewed, and the sweetness
sucked out in the same manner as is done with sugar-cane. This is still
practised in Abyssinia, where they likewise chew the root of the Indian
corn, and of every kind of cyperus; and Herodotus tells us, that about
a cubit of the lower part of the stalk was cut off and roasted over the
fire, and eaten.
From the scarcity of wood, which was very great in Egypt for the
reasons I have already mentioned, this lower part was likewise used in
making cups, moulds, and other necessary utensils; we need not doubt
too, one use of the woody part of this plant was to serve for what we
call boards or covers for binding the leaves, which were made of the
bark; we know that this was anciently one use of it, both from Alcæus
and Anacreon.
In a large and very perfect manuscript in my possession, which was dug
up at Thebes, the boards are of papyrus root, covered first with the
coarser pieces of the paper, and then with leather, in the same manner
as it would be done now. It is a book one would call a small folio,
rather than by any other name, and I apprehend that the shape of the
book where papyrus is employed was always of the same form with those
of the moderns. The letters are strong, deep, black, and apparently
written with a reed, as is practised by the Egyptians and Abyssinians
still. It is written on both sides, so never could be rolled up as
parchment was, nor would the brittleness of the materials when dry,
support any such frequent unrolling. This probably arises from their
having first written upon papyrus, after the use of stone was laid
aside, and only adopted skins upon their embracing the Jewish religion.
The Ethiopians, indeed, write upon parchment, yet use the same form
of books as we do. The outer boards are made of wood and covered with
leather. It was the law only they say they were in use to preserve in
one long roll of parchment, upon the foreside of which it was written;
it being indecent and improper to write any part of it on the back,
or a less honourable place of the skin: And such was the roll we have
just mentioned as presented to Ptolemy, where such pains were taken in
joining the several skins together, for this very reason.
The manner paper was made has been controverted; but whoever will read
Pliny[12] attentively, cannot, as I imagine, be long in doubt. The
thick part of the stalk being cut in half, the pellicle between the
pith and the bark, or perhaps the two pellicles, were stript off, and
divided by an iron instrument, which probably was sharp-pointed, but
did not cut at the edges. This was squared at the sides so as to be
like a ribband, then laid upon a smooth table or dresser, after being
cut into the length that it was required the leaf should be. These
stripes, or ribbands of papyrus, were lapped over each other by a very
thin border, and then pieces of the same kind were laid transversely,
the length of these answering to the breadth of the first. The book
which I have is eleven inches and a half long, and seven inches broad,
and there is not one leaf in it that has a ribband of papyrus of two
inches and a half broad, from which I imagine the size of this plant,
formerly being fifteen feet long, was pretty near the truth. No such
plant, however, appears now; I do not remember to have ever seen one
more than ten feet high. This is probably owing to their being allowed
to grow wild, and too thick together, without being weeded; we know
from Herodotus[13], that the Egyptians cut theirs down yearly as they
did their harvest.
These ribbands, or stripes of papyrus, have twelve different names in
Pliny[14], which is to be copious with a vengeance. They are, philura,
ramentum; scheda, cutis, plagula, corium, tænia, subtegmen, statumen,
pagina, tabula, and papyrus. After these, by whatever name you call
them, were arranged at right angles to each other, a weight was placed
upon them while moist, which compressed them, and so they were suffered
to dry in the sun.
It was supposed that the water of the Nile[15] had a gummy quality
necessary to glue these stripes together. This we may be assured is
without foundation, no such quality being found in the water of the
Nile. On the contrary, I found it of all others the most improper, till
it had settled, and was absolutely divested of all the earth gathered
in its turbid state. I made several pieces of this paper, both in
Abyssinia and Egypt, and it appears to me, that the sugar or sweetness
with which the whole juice of this plant is impregnated, is the matter
that causes the adhesion of these stripes together, and that the use of
the water is no more than to dissolve this, and put it perfectly and
equally in fusion.
There seemed to be an advantage in putting the inside of the pellicle
in the situation that it was before divided, that is, the interior
parts face to face, one long-ways, and one cross-ways, after which a
thin board of the cover of a book was laid first over it, and a heap of
stones piled upon it. I do not think it succeeded with boiled water,
and it was always coarse and gritty with the water of the Nile. Some
pieces were excellent, made with water that had settled, that is, in
the state in which we drink it; but even the best of it was always
thick and heavy, drying very soon, then turning firm and rigid, and
never white; nor did I ever find one piece that would bear the strokes
of a mallet[16], but in its greenest state the blow shivered and
divided the fibres length-ways; nor did I see the marks of any stroke
of a hammer or mallet in the book in my custody, which is certainly on
Saitic or Hieratic paper. I apprehend by a passage in Pliny[17], that
the mallet was used only when artificial glue or gum was made use of,
which must have been as often as they let these stripes of the ribband
or pellicle dry before arranging them.
Pliny[18] says, the books of Numa were 830 years old when they were
found, and he wonders, from the brittleness of the inside of the paper,
it could have lasted so long. The manuscript in my possession, which
was dug up at Thebes, I conjecture is near three times the age that
Pliny mentions; and, though it is certainly fragil, has substance and
preservation of letter enough, with good care, to last as much longer,
and be legible.
If the Saitic paper was, as we imagine, the first invented, it should
follow, contrary to what Isidore advances, that it was not first
invented in Memphis, but in Upper Egypt in Seide, whose language and
writing obtained in the earliest age, though Lucan seems to think with
Isidore,
_Nondum flumineas Memphis contexere biblos
Noverat._----
LUCAN, lib. iii.
After the hieroglyphics were lost, perhaps some time before, we know
nothing the Egyptians adopted so generally as paper, and there were
probably[19] religious reasons that impeded in those early days the
people from falling upon the most natural, the skins of beasts.
However this be, it is certain under the Egyptians, naturally averse
to novelty and improvement, paper arrived to no great perfection till
taken in hands by the Romans. The Charta Claudia was thirteen inches
wide, the Hieratica, or Saitica, eleven, and such is the length of the
leaf of my book in the Saitic dialect, that is, the old Coptic, or
Egyptian of Upper Egypt. I have no idea what the Emporetic paper was,
which obtained that degree of coarseness and toughness, as to serve for
shopkeepers’ uses to tie up goods, unless it was like our brown paper
employed to the same purposes.
If the date of the invention of this useful art of making paper
is doubtful, the time when it was lost, or superseded by one more
convenient, is as uncertain. Eustathius says it was disused in his
time in the 1170. Mabillon endeavours to prove it existed in the 9th,
and even that there existed some Popish bulls wrote upon it as late as
the 11th century. He gives, as instances, a part of St Mark’s Gospel
preserved at Venice as being upon papyrus, and the fragment of Josephus
at Milan to be cotton paper, while Maffei proves this to be just the
reverse, that of St Mark being cotton, and the other indisputably he
thinks to be Egyptian papyrus, so that Mabillon’s authority as to the
bulls of the pope may be fairly questioned.
The several times I have been at these places mentioned, I have never
succeeded in seeing any of these pieces; that of St Mark at Venice I
was assured had been recognized to be cotton paper; it was rendered not
legible by the warm saliva of zealots kissing it from devotion, which I
can easily comprehend must contain a very corrosive quality, and the
Venetians now refuse to shew it more. I have seen two detached leaves
of papyrus, but do not believe there is another book existing at the
present time but that in my possession, which is very perfect. I gave
Dr Woide leave to translate it at Lord North’s desire; it is a gnostic
book, full of their dreams.
The general figure of this plant Pliny has rightly said to resemble a
Thyrsus; the head is composed of a number of small grassy filaments,
each about a foot long. About the middle, each of these filaments
parts into four, and in the point, or partition, are four branches
of flowers; the head of this is not unlike an ear of wheat in form,
but which in fact is but a chaffy, silky, soft husk. These heads, or
flowers, grow upon the stalk alternately, and are not opposite to, or
on the same line with each other at the bottom.
Pliny[20] says it has no seed; but this we may be assured is an
absurdity. The form of the flower sufficiently indicates that it was
made to resolve itself into the covering of one, which is certainly
very small, and by its exalted situation, and thickness of the head of
the flower, seems to have needed the extraordinary covering it has had
to protect it from the violent hold the wind must have had upon it. For
the same reason, the bottom of the filaments composing the head are
sheathed in four concave leaves, which keep them close together, and
prevent injury from the wind getting in between them.
The stalk is of a vivid green, thickest at the bottom, and tapering
up to the top[21]; it is of a triangular form. In the Jordan, the
single side, or apex of the triangle, stood opposed to the stream as
the cut-water of a boat or ship, or the sharp angle of a buttress of
a bridge, by which the pressure of the stream upon the stalk would be
greatly diminished. I do not precisely remember how it stood in the
lakes in Ethiopia and Egypt, and only have this remark in the notes I
made at the Jordan.
This construction of the stalk of the papyrus seems to reproach
Aristotle with want of observation. He says that no plant had either
triangular or quadrangular stalks. Here we see an instance of the
contrary in the papyrus, whose stalk is certainly and universally
triangular; and we learn from Dioscorides that many more have
quadrangular stalks, or stems of four angles.
It has but one root, which is large and strong[22], Pliny says, as
thick as a man’s arm: So it was, probably, when the plant was fifteen
feet high, but it is now diminished in proportion, the whole length of
the stalk, comprehending the head, being a little above ten, but the
root is still hard and solid near the heart, and works with the turning
loom tolerably well, as it did formerly when they made cups of it. In
the middle of this long root arises the stalk at right angles, so when
inverted it has the figure of a T, and on each side of the large root
there are smaller elastic ones, which are of a direction perpendicular
to it, and which, like the strings of a tent, steady it and fix it to
the earth at the bottom. About two feet, or little more, of the lower
part of the stalk is cloathed with long, hollow, sword-shaped leaves,
which cover each other like scales, and fortify the foot of the plant.
They are of a dusky brown, or yellow colour. I suppose the stalk was
cut off below, at about where these leaves end.
The drawing represents the papyrus as growing. The head is not upright,
but is inclined, as from its size it always must be in hot countries,
in which alone it grows. In all such climates, there is some particular
wind that reigns longer than others, and this being always the most
violent, as well as the most constant, gives to heavy-headed trees, or
plants, an inclination contrary to that from which it blows.
This plant is called el Berdi in Egypt, which signifies nothing in
Arabic, and I suppose is old Egyptian. I have been told by a learned
gentleman[23], that in Syria it is known by the name of Babeer, which
approaches more to the sound of papyrus, and paper; this I never heard
myself, but leave it entirely upon his authority.
BALESSAN, BALM, OR BALSAM.
The great value set upon this drug in the east remounts to very early
ages; it is coeval with the India trade for pepper, and the beginning
of it consequently lost in the darkness of the first ages. We know from
scripture, the oldest history extant, as well as most infallible, that
the Ishmaelites, or Arabian carriers and merchants, trafficking with
the India commodities into Egypt, brought with them balm as part of the
cargo with pepper; but the price that they paid for Joseph was silver,
and not a barter with any of their articles of merchandise.
Strabo alone, of all the ancients, hath given us the true account of
the place of its origin, “Near to this, that historian says, is the
most happy land of the Sabeans, and they are a very great people. Among
these, frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon grow, and in the coast that is
about Saba the balsam also.” Among the myrrh-trees behind Azab all
along the coast to the Straits of Babelmandeb is its native country.
It grows to a tree above fourteen feet high, spontaneously and without
culture, like the myrrh, the coffee, and frankincense tree; they are
all equally the wood of the country, and are occasionally cut down and
used for fuel. We need not doubt but that it was early transplanted
into Arabia, that is, into the south part of Arabia Felix, immediately
fronting Azab, the place of its nativity. The high country of Arabia
was too cold to receive it, being all mountainous; water freezes there.
[Illustration: _Balessan_
_London Publish’d Dec^r. 1.^{st} 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._]
[Illustration: _Balessan._]
There is an anecdote relating to Sir William Middleton, who was
surprised and taken prisoner by the Turks in the first attempt to open
the trade of the Red Sea, that when about to set[24] out for Sanaa,
corruptly called Zenan, the residence of the Imam, or prince of Arabia
Felix, he was by the people desired[25] to take his fur cloak along
with him to keep him from the cold; he thought they were ridiculing
him upon what he had to suffer from the approaching heat, which he was
convinced in the middle of Arabia must be excessive.
The first plantation that succeeded seems to have been at Petra, the
ancient metropolis of Arabia, now called Beder, or Beder Hunein, whence
I got one of the specimens from which the present drawing is made.
Josephus[26], in the history of the antiquities of his country, says,
that a tree of this balsam was brought to Jerusalem by the queen of
Saba, and given, among other presents, to Solomon, who, as we know
from scripture, was very studious of all sort of plants, and skilful
in the description and distinction of them. Here it seems to have been
cultivated and to have thriven, so that the place of its origin came to
be forgotten.
Notwithstanding this positive authority of Josephus, and the great
probability that attends it, we are not to put it in competition with
what we have been told from scripture, as we have just now seen, that
the place where it grew, and was sold to merchants, was Gilead in
Judea, more than 1730 years before Christ, or 1000 before the queen of
Saba; so that reading the verse, nothing can be more plain than that it
had been transplanted into Judea, flourished, and had become an article
of commerce in Gilead long before the period Josephus mentions: “And
they sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked,
and behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their
camels, bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down
to Egypt[27].” Now, the spicery, or pepper, was certainly purchased by
the Ishmaelites at the mouth of the Red Sea, where was the market for
Indian goods, and at the same place they must have bought the myrrh,
for that neither grew nor grows any where else than in Saba or Azabo
east to Cape Gardefan, where were the ports for India, and whence it
was dispersed all over the world.
The Ishmaelites, or Arabian carriers, loaded their camels at the mouth
of the Red Sea with pepper and myrrh. For reasons not now known to us,
they went and completed their cargo with balsam at Gilead, so that,
contrary to the authority of Josephus, nothing is more certain, than
1730 years before Christ, and 1000 years before the queen of Saba came
to Jerusalem, the balsam-tree had been transplanted from Abyssinia into
Judea, and become an article of commerce there, and the place from
which it originally was brought, through length of time, combined with
other reasons, came to be forgotten.
Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Solinus,and Serapion, all say that
this balsam came only from Judea. The words of Pliny are, “But to all
other odours whatever, the balsam is preferred, produced in no other
part but the land of Judea, and even there in two gardens only; both of
them belonging to the king, one no more than twenty acres, the other
still smaller[28].”
At this time I suppose it got its name of Balsamum Judaicum, or, Balm
of Gilead, and thence became an article in merchandise and fiscal
revenue, which probably occasioned the discouragement of bringing
it any more from Arabia, whence it very probably was prohibited as
contraband. We shall suppose thirty acres planted with this tree would
have produced more than all the trees in Arabia do at this day. Nor
does the plantation of Beder Hunein amount to much more than that
quantity, for we are still to observe, that even when it had been as it
were naturalised in Judea, and acquired a name in the country, still
it bore evident marks of its being a stranger there; and its being
confined to two royal gardens alone, shews it was maintained there
by force and culture, and was by no means a native of the country.
And this is confirmed by Strabo, who speaks of it being in the king’s
palace or garden at Jericho. This place being one of the warmest in
Judea, shews likewise their apprehensions about it, so that in Judea,
we may imagine it was pretty much in the state of our myrtles in
England, which, though cultivated in green-houses in all the rest of
the island, yet grow beautifully and luxuriantly in Devonshire and
Cornwall, the western parts of it.
Diodorus Siculus says, it grew in a valley in Arabia Felix; he should
have said on a number of gentle, sloping hills in Arabia Deserta, which
have a very small degree of elevation above the plain, but by no means
resemble a valley. This place was the scene of three bloody battles
between Mahomet and his kinsmen the Beni Koreish, who refused to be
converts to his religion, or acknowledge his divine legation. These
are at large described by several of the historians of that nation,
with circumstances and anecdotes, as well interesting and entertaining,
as elegantly told. They shew plainly that Mahomet’s tribe, the Beni
Koreish, did not receive their fanatical manners and disposition
from Mahomet and his religion, but were just as obstinate, ignorant,
and sanguinary when they were Pagans, as they were afterwards when
converted and became Mahometans. The last of these battles, which was
decisive in Mahomet’s favour, gave him the sovereignty of Mecca, and
was attended with the extirpation of some of the principal families in
this tribe.
At this time the balsam is supposed, by being sold in Judea, and not
accessible by reason of the commotions in Arabia, to have become almost
forgotten in that last part, where the trade from Abyssinia, its native
country, was likewise interrupted by this innovation of religion,
and by Mahomet’s profanation of the Caaba, or temple of the sun, the
ancient resort of the Sabean merchants carrying on the trade of India.
This interval the impostor thought proper for a pretended miracle; he
said, that, from the blood of the Beni Koreish slain, there had sprung
up this grove of trees, from the juice of which all the true believers
on his side received a cure for their wounds, however fatal they
appeared, nay, some of them were revived from even death itself. Since
that time it has maintained its reputation equal to that which it had
in antiquity.
Prosper Alpinus says, that one Messoner a eunuch, governor of Cairo in
the year 1519, caused bring from Arabia forty plants, which he placed
in the garden of Mattareah, where he superintended them. Every day he
went to that garden to pay his devotions to the Virgin Mary. It was
many times renewed, and has as often perished since. Bellonius says,
that in his time there were ten plants at Mattareah, and he is of
opinion, that in all ages they grew well in Arabia, which is not true,
for those at Beder are constantly supplied with new plants so soon
as the old ones decay. There was none existing at Mattareah the two
several times I visited Cairo, but there were some of the Christians
still living there that remembered one plant in that garden.
There were three productions from this tree very much esteemed among
the ancients. The first was called Opobalsamum, or, Juice of the
Balsam, which was the finest kind, composed of that greenish liquor
found in the kernel of the fruit: The next was Carpo-balsamum, made
by the expression of the fruit when in maturity. The third was
Xylo-balsamum, the worst of all, it was an expression or decoction of
the small new twigs of a reddish colour. These twigs are still gathered
in little faggots and sent to Venice, where I am told they are an
ingredient in the Theriac, or of some sort of compound drug made in the
laboratories there: But the principal quantity of balsam in all times
was produced by incision, as it is at this day. Concerning this, too,
many fables have been invented and propagated.
Tacitus says, that this tree was so averse to iron that it trembled
upon a knife being laid near it, and some pretend the incision should
be made by ivory, glass, or stone. There is no doubt but the more
attention there is given to it, and the cleaner the wound is made, the
better this balsam will be. It is now, as it probably ever has been,
cut by an ax, when the juice is in its strongest circulation in July,
August, and beginning of September. It is then received into a small
earthen bottle, and every day’s produce gathered and poured into a
larger, which is kept closely corked. The Arabs Harb, a noble family of
Beni Koreish, are the proprietors of it, and of Beder, where it grows.
It is a station of the Emir Hadje, or pilgrims going to Mecca, half way
between that city and Medina.