A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    98/120 (page 84)
    Red Sea and the Nile. The Greeks and Ro- mans consumed great quantities of spice and aromatics, not only when burning incense in their temples, but likewise in burning the bodies of their dead. How ignorant they were of the countries in which these productions are found, and the manner in which they are procured, will appear from the strange account given by Herodotus, the earliest of profane historians, of the manner of obtaining cinnamon. “How or “ where this substance grows,” he says, “ I have “ not been able certainly to ascertain; but from “ the best information I can get, it appears to “ be the produce of those countries in which “ Bacchus was nursed. It is said that in Ara- “ bia great birds bring this wood (which we, “ after the Phoenicians, call cinnamon) into “ their nests: these nests are constructed of “ clay, and fixed against the faces of steep cliffs, “ out of the reach of human feet. The Ara- “ bians, in order to obtain the spice, carry the “ limbs of oxen, and asses, and other large ani- “mals near the nests, and there leave them; “ when the birds fly down and carry up the “ meat, whose weight breaks down the nests, “ and brings them to the earth*. We now know that cinnamon is the inner * Book iii. § 111.