Key to Easy Latin Stories for beginners/Part III/V
V.THE SPICE TRADE.
Frankincense and cassia.
122.Arabia is the most distant of inhabited countries. In it alone of all countries does frankincense grow, and myrrh, and cassia, and cinnamon. The Arabs find all these things, if you except myrrh, (but) not without difficulty. The frankincense, indeed they collect after burning storax, which is imported into Greece by the Phoenicians. On burning storax they find frankincense; for winged serpents, with small bodies, of a dappled appearance, guard the incense trees, surrounding each tree in great numbers. They are driven from these trees by no other thing except the smoke of storax. Now the providence of God is truly wonderful. For He has made all those animals which are of a timid disposition, and those which are good for food, fertile, that their kind may not disappear: but those which are wicked and injurious, but little fertile. So the Arabs find the frankincense in that way, but the cassia (they find) as follows. Covered with respect to the whole body and face, with the sole exception of the eyes, with ox or other skins, they go forth to collect cassia. Now this grows in a very deep marsh, around which live winged beasts, closely resembling bats, that scream in a terrible way, and are very strong. After driving away these from their eyes they gather the cassia.
How to procure cinnamon.
123.But they collect cinnamon in a still more wonderful way. It is believed to grow in those regions in which Bacchus was brought up. Moreover, huge birds are said to bring those tolls which we, taught by the Phoenicians, call cinnamon. Those rolls are brought by these birds to their nests (which are) built of mud, against the mountain precipices, that there may be no approach for man. So the Arabs use some such artifice as the following. They bring together to these spots the carcasses of oxen, asses, and other beasts of burden, cut up into huge pieces. After laying these down in the neighbourhood of the nests, they retire to some distance from thence; then the birds descendmg seize the limbs of these beasts of burden, and carry them to their nests. But these, since they cannot support the weight, are broken, and fall to the ground. Then the men running up, collect the cinnamon, which is carried to other countries.