things in this Island” (Zanij for Zabaj, i.e.  Java or Sumatra) “is the Camphor Tree, which is of vast size, insomuch that its shade will cover a hundred persons and more.  They bore into the highest part of the tree and thence flows out the camphor-water, enough to fill many pitchers.  Then they open the tree lower down about the middle, and extract the camphor in lumps.” [This very account is to be found in Ibn Khordadhbeh. (De Goeje’s transl. p. 45.)—­H.C.] Compare this passage, which we may notice has been borrowed bodily by Sindbad of the Sea, with what is probably the best modern account, Junghuhn’s:  “Among the forest trees (of Tapanuli adjoining Barus) the Camphor Tree (Dryabalanops Camphora) attracts beyond all the traveller’s observation, by its straight columnar and colossal grey trunk, and its mighty crown of foliage, rising high above the canopy of the forest.  It exceeds in dimensions the Rasamala,[3] the loftiest tree of Java, and is probably the greatest tree of the Archipelago, if not of the world,[4] reaching a height of 200 feet.  One of the middling size which I had cut down measured at the base, where the camphor leaks out, 7-1/2 Paris feet in diameter (about 8 feet English); its trunk rose to 100 feet, with an upper diameter of 5 feet, before dividing, and the height of the whole tree to the crown was 150 feet.  The precious consolidated camphor is found in small quantities, 1/4 lb. to 1 lb. in a single tree, in fissure-like hollows in the stem.  Yet many are cut down in vain, or split up the side without finding camphor.  The camphor oil is prepared by the natives by bruising and boiling the twigs.”  The oil, however, appears also to be found in the tree, as Crawford and Collingwood mention, corroborating the ancient Arab.

It is well known that the Chinese attach an extravagantly superior value to the Malay camphor, and probably its value in Marco’s day was higher than it is now, but still its estimate as worth its weight in gold looks like hyperbole.  Forrest, a century ago, says Barus Camphor was in the Chinese market worth nearly its weight in silver, and this is true still.  The price is commonly estimated at 100 times that of the Chinese camphor.  The whole quantity exported from the Barus territory goes to China.  De Vriese reckons the average annual export from Sumatra between 1839 and 1844 at less than 400 kilogrammes.  The following table shows the wholesale rates in the Chinese market as given by Rondot in 1848:—­

Qualities of Camphor.           Per picul of 133-1/3 lbs.
Ordinary China, 1st quality                    20 dollars.
"       "    2nd    "                       14    "
Formosa                                        25    "
Japan                                          30    "
China ngai (ext. from an Artemisia)         250    "
Barus, 1st quality                           2000    "
"    2nd   "                               1000    "