Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/486

374 climate were exactly similar, and, consequently, the plentiful use of these warm productions was as necessary there, as in India, the country where they grew.

is true, Arabia was not abandoned wholly to the inclemency of its climate, as it produced myrrh and frankincense, which, when used as perfumes or fumigations, were powerful antiseptics of their kind, but administered rather as preventatives, than to remove the disorder when it once prevailed. These were kept up at a price, of which, at this day, we have no conception, but which never diminished from any circumstance, under which the country where they grew, laboured.

silk and cotton of India were white and colourless, liable to soil, and without any variety; but Arabia produced gum and dyes of various colours, which were highly agreeable to the taste of the Asiatics. We find the sacred scriptures speak of the party-coloured garment as the mark of the greatest honour *. Solomon, in his proverbs, too, says, that he decked his bed with coverings of tapestry of Egypt †. But Egypt had neither silk nor cotton manufactory, no, nor even wool. Solomon's coverings, though he had them from Egypt, were therefore an article of barter with India.

, or Balsam ‡, was a commodity produced in Arabia, sold at a very high price, which it kept up till within these

few


 * Gen. xxxvii. 3 and 2 Sam. xiii. 18.  † Prov. vii. 16.

‡ Vide Appendix, where this tree is described.