answered her, ‘I am carrying a girl,’ the woman said, ‘Show me the girl.’ On the nurse refusing, and saying, ‘She is so ugly, that I do not choose to show her to any one,’ the woman insisted, repeating, ‘Show me the girl.’ At last the nurse showed her. But the woman, having touched the girl’s head, said, ‘This girl will surpass all Spartan women in beauty of ’ And then from that very day the girl’s face was changed.
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.
