Chapter XXXVIII: Concerning the City of Dufar

Dufar is a great and noble and fine city, and lies 500 miles to the north-west of Esher. The people are Saracens, and have a Count for their chief, who is subject to the Soldan of Aden; for this city still belongs to the Province of Aden. It stands upon the sea and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby. This city has under it many other towns and villages.{1}

Much white incense is produced here, and I will tell you how it grows. The trees are like small fir-trees; these are notched with a knife in several places, and from these notches the incense is exuded. Sometimes also it flows from the tree without any notch; this is by reason of the great heat of the sun there.{2}

NOTE 1.—_Dufar_. The name ظفار is variously pronounced Dhafár,
DHOFAR, Zhafár, and survives attached to a well-watered and fertile
plain district opening on the sea, nearly 400 miles east of Sheḥr,
though according to Haines there is now no _town_ of the name.
Ibn Batuta speaks of the city as situated at the extremity of
Yemen (“the province of Aden”), and mentions its horse-trade, its
unequalled dirt, stench, and flies, and consequent diseases. (See
II. 196 _seqq._) What he says of the desert character of the tract
round the town is not in accordance with modern descriptions of
the plain of Dhafár, nor seemingly with his own statements of the
splendid bananas grown there, as well as other Indian products,
betel, and coco-nut. His account of the Sultan of Zhafár in his
time corroborates Polo’s, for he says that prince was the son of a
cousin of the King of Yemen, who had _been chief of Zhafár under
the suzeraineté of that King and tributary to him_. The only ruins
mentioned by Haines are extensive ones near Haffer, towards the
_western_ part of the plain; and this Fresnel considers to be the
site of the former city. A lake which exists here, on the landward
side of the ruins, was, he says, formerly a gulf, and formed the
port, “the very good haven,” of which our author speaks.

A quotation in the next note however indicates Merbát, which is
at the eastern extremity of the plain, as having been the port of
Dhafár in the Middle Ages. Professor Sprenger is of opinion that
the city itself was in the eastern part of the plain. The matter
evidently needs further examination.

This Dhafár, or the bold mountain above it, is supposed to be
the _Sephar_ of Genesis (x. 30). But it does not seem to be the
_Sapphara metropolis_ of Ptolemy, which is rather an inland city of
the same name: “Dhafár was the name of _two_ cities of Yemen, one
of which was near Sana’á ... it was the residence of the Himyarite
Princes; some authors allege that it is identical with Sana’á”
(_Maráṣid-al-Ittila’_, in Reinaud’s Abulfeda, I. p. 124).

_Dofar_ is noted by Camoens for its fragrant incense. It was
believed in Malabar that the famous King Cheram Perumal, converted
to Islám, died on the pilgrimage to Mecca and was buried at Dhafár,
where his tomb was much visited for its sanctity.

The place is mentioned (_Tsafarh_) in the Ming Annals of China
as a Mahomedan country lying, with a fair wind, 10 days N.W. of
_Kuli_ (_supra_, p. 440). Ostriches were found there, and among
the products are named drugs which Dr. Bretschneider renders as
_Olibanum_, _Storax liquida_, _Myrrh_, _Catechu_ (?), _Dragon’s
blood_. This state sent an embassy (so-called) to China in
1422. (_Haines_ in _J. R. G. S._ XV. 116 _seqq._; _Playfair’s
Yemen_, p. 31; _Fresnel_ in _J. As._ sér. 3, tom. V. 517 _seqq._;
_Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen_, p. 56; _Bretschneider_, p. 19.)

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 χώρα λιβανοφόρος
or λιβανωτοφόρος, 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 _Lubán_ and _Kundur_, by the Greeks
_Libanos_, by the Romans _Thus_, in mediæval 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 Sumálí 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 _Maráṣid-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 Dhafár,
which still subsists, is on the shore of the Indian Sea, distant 5
parasangs from Mérbáth in the province of Shehr. Mérbáth lies below
Dhafár, and serves as its port. Olibanum is found nowhere except
in the mountains of Dhafár, 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 Dhafár, 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 Dhafár 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 Dhafár 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.

Thus the fame of Arabian olibanum was dying away, and so was our
knowledge of that and the opposite African coast, when Colebrooke
(1807) published his Essay on Olibanum, in which he showed that a
gum-resin, identical as he considered with frankincense, and so
named (_Kundur_), was used in India, and was the produce of an
indigenous tree, _Boswellia serrata_ of Roxburgh, but thereafter
known as _B. thurifera_. This discovery, connecting itself, it
may be supposed, with Niebuhr’s statements about Indian olibanum
(though probably misunderstood), and with the older tradition
coming down from Dioscorides of a so-called Indian _libanos_
(_supra_ p. 396), seems to have induced a hasty and general
assumption that the Indian resin was the olibanum of commerce;
insomuch that the very existence of Arabian olibanum came to be
treated as a matter of doubt in some respectable books, and that
down to a very recent date.

In the Atlas to Bruce’s Travels is figured a plant under the
name of _Angoua_, which the Abyssinians believed to produce true
olibanum, and which Bruce says did really produce a gum resembling
it.

In 1837 Lieut. Cruttenden of the Indian Navy saw the frankincense
tree of Arabia on a journey inland from Merbát, and during the
ensuing year the trees of the Sumálí country were seen, and
partially described by Kempthorne, and Vaughan of the same service,
and by Cruttenden himself. Captain Haines also in his report of the
Survey of the Hadhramaut coast in 1843–1844,[2] speaks, apparently
as an eye-witness, of the frankincense trees about Dhafár as
extremely numerous, and adds that from 3000 to 10,000 _maunds_
were annually exported “from Merbát and Dhafár.” “3 to 10” is vague
enough; but as the kind of _maund_ is not specified it is vaguer
still. Maunds differ as much as _livres Français_ and _livres
sterling_. In 1844 and 1846 Dr. Carter also had opportunities of
examining olibanum trees on this coast, which he turned to good
account, sending to Government cuttings, specimens, and drawings,
and publishing a paper on the subject in the Journal of the Bombay
Branch of the R. As. Society (1847).

]

But neither Dr. Carter’s paper and specimens, nor the previous
looser notices of the naval officers, seemed to attract any
attention, and men of no small repute went on repeating in their
manuals the old story about Indian olibanum. Dr. G. Birdwood
however, at Bombay, in the years following 1859, took up the
subject with great zeal and intelligence, procuring numerous
specimens of the Sumálí trees and products; and his monograph of
the genus _Boswellia_ in the Linnaean Transactions (read April
1869), to which this note is very greatly indebted, is a most
interesting paper, and may be looked on, I believe, as embodying
the most correct knowledge as yet attainable. The species as ranked
in his table are the following:

Boswellia Frereana (_Birdw._).]

1. _Boswellia Carterii_ (Birdw.), including the Arabian tree of
Dhafár, and the larger variety called _Mohr Madau_ by the Sumálís.

2. _B. Bhau-dajiana_ (Birdw.), _Mohr A’d_ of the Sumálís.

3. _B. papyrifera_ (Richard). Abyssinian species.

4. _B. thurifera_ (Colebr.), see p. 396 _supra_.

5. _B. Frereana_ (Birdw.), _Yegár_ of the Sumálís—named after Mr.
William Frere, Member of Council at Bombay. No. 2 was named from
Bhau Dáji, a very eminent Hindu scholar and physician at Bombay
(Birdw.).

No. 1 produces the Arabian olibanum, and Nos. 1 and 2 together the
bulk of the olibanum exported from the Sumálí coast under the name
_Lubán-Shehri_. Both are said to give an inferior kind besides,
called _L. Bedawi_. No. 3 is, according to Birdwood, the same as
Bruce’s _Angoua_. No. 5 is distinctly a new species, and affords a
highly fragrant resin sold under the name of _Lubán Méti_.

Bombay is now the great mart of frankincense. The quantity exported
thence in 1872–1873 was 25,000 _cwt._, of which nearly one quarter
went to China.

Frankincense when it first exudes is milky white; whence the name
“White Incense” by which Polo speaks of it. And the Arabic name
_lúbán_ apparently refers to milk. The Chinese have so translated,
calling it _Ju-siang_ or Milk-perfume.

Polo, we see, says the tree was like a fir tree; and it is
remarkable that a Chinese Pharmacology quoted by Bretschneider
says the like, which looks as if their information came from a
common source. And yet I think Polo’s must have been oral. One of
the meanings of _Lubán_, from the Kámús, is _Pinus_ (_Freytag_).
This may have to do with the error. Dr. Birdwood, in a paper in
_Cassell’s Bible Educator_, has given a copy of a remarkable
wood engraving from Thevet’s _Cosmographie Universelle_ (1575),
representing the collection of Arabian olibanum, and this through
his kind intervention I am able to reproduce here. The text
(probably after Polo) speaks of the tree as resembling a fir, but
in the cut the firs are in the background; the incense trees have
some real suggestion of _Boswellia_, and the whole design has
singular spirit and verisimilitude.

Dr. Birdwood thus speaks of the _B. Frereana_, the only species
that he has seen in flower: “As I saw the plant in Playfair’s
garden at Aden ... in young leaf and covered with bloom, I was
much struck by its elegant singularity. The long racemes of green
star-like flowers, tipped with the red anthers of the stamens (like
aigrettes of little stars of emerald set with minute rubies),
droop gracefully over the clusters of glossy, glaucous leaves; and
every part of the plant (bark, leaves, and flowers) gives out the
most refreshing lemon-like fragrance.” (_Birdwood_ in Linnaean
Transactions for 1869, pp. 109 _seqq._; _Hanbury_ and _Flückiger’s
Pharmacographia_, pp. 120 _seqq._; _Ritter_, xii. 356 _seqq._;
_Niebuhr, Desc. de l’Arabie_, I. p. 202, II. pp. 125–132.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] “_Drogue franche_:—Qui a les qualités requises sans mélange” (_Littré_). “_Franc_.... Vrai, véritable” (_Raynouard_).

The mediæval _Olibanum_ was probably the Arabic _Al-lubán_, but was
popularly interpreted as _Oleum Libani_. Dr. Birdwood saw at the
Paris Exhibition of 1867 samples of frankincense solemnly labelled
as the produce of Mount Lebanon!

“Professor Dümichen, of Strasburg, has discovered at the Temple of
Daïr-el-Báhri, in Upper Egypt, paintings illustrating the traffic
carried on between Egypt and Arabia, as early as the 17th century
B.C. In these paintings there are representations, not only of
bags of olibanum, but also of olibanum-trees planted in tubs or
boxes, being conveyed by ship from Arabia to Egypt.” (_Hanbury_ and
_Flückiger_, _Pharmacographia_, p. 121.)

[2] Published in _J. R. G. S._, vol. XV. (for 1845).

[3] By courtesy of the publishers, Messrs. Cassell, Petter, & Galpin.