NOTE 2.—­Frankincense presents a remarkable example of the obscurity which so often attends the history of familiar drugs; though in this case the darkness has been, like that of which Marco spoke in his account of the Caraonas (vol. i. p. 98), much of man’s making.

This coast of Hadhramaut is the true and ancient [Greek:  chora libanophoros] or [Greek:  libanotophoros], indicated or described under those names by Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pseudo-Arrian, and other classical writers; i.e. the country producing the fragrant gum-resin called by the Hebrews Lebonah, by the Brahmans apparently Kundu and Kunduru, by the Arabs Luban and Kundur, by the Greeks Libanos, by the Romans Thus, in mediaeval Latin Olibanum, and in English Frankincense, i.e.  I apprehend, “Genuine incense,” or “Incense Proper."[1] It is still produced in this region and exported from it:  but the larger part of that which enters the markets of the world is exported from the roadsteads of the opposite Sumali coast.  In ancient times also an important quantity was exported from the latter coast, immediately west of Cape Gardafui (Aromatum Prom.), and in the Periplus this frankincense is distinguished by the title Peratic, “from over the water.”

The Marasid-al-Ittila’, a Geog.  Dictionary of the end of the 14th century, in a passage of which we have quoted the commencement in the preceding note, proceeds as follows:  “The other Dhafar, which still subsists, is on the shore of the Indian Sea, distant 5 parasangs from Merbath in the province of Shehr.  Merbath lies below Dhafar, and serves as its port.  Olibanum is found nowhere except in the mountains of Dhafar, in the territory of Shehr; in a tract which extends 3 days in length and the same in breadth.  The natives make incisions in the trees with a knife, and the incense flows down.  This incense is carefully watched, and can be taken only to Dhafar, where the Sultan keeps the best part for himself; the rest is made over to the people.  But any one who should carry it elsewhere than to Dhafar would be put to death.”

The elder Niebuhr seems to have been the first to disparage the Arabian produce of olibanum.  He recognises indeed its ancient celebrity, and the fact that it was still to some extent exported from Dhafar and other places on this coast, but he says that the Arabs preferred foreign kinds of incense, especially benzoin; and also repeatedly speaks of the superiority of that from India (des Indes and de l’Inde), by which it is probable that he meant the same thing—­viz., benzoin from the Indian Archipelago.  Niebuhr did not himself visit Hadhramaut.