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Catten waight of China, each Catte as much as 20. ounces Portingall waight, and each sacke is worth in that Country at the least 5000. Caixas, and when it is highest at 6. or 7000. Caixas: Mace, Cloues, Nutmegs, white and blacke Beniamin, Camphora, are sold by the Bhar, each barre waying 350.

The white sandol is wood very sweet and in great request among the Indians; for they grinde it with a litle water, and anoynt their bodies therewith: it commeth from the Isle of Timor. Camphora is a precious thing among the Indians, and is solde dearer than golde. I thinke none of it commeth for Christendome.

The camphor-tree the Laurus camphora is another very fine tree, with red and black berries. The camphor comes from it in white fragrant drops, which, when they harden, require but slight purifying to give them the appearance which the camphor we see in England presents. Everywhere we met with the tea-tree or tea-plant. It is as common in Japan as our privet or hawthorn.

Next comes the Laurus camphora, from the leaves of which camphor is extracted, the crystallized essence which evaporates so easily; then the Laurus cinnamomum, the bark of which is called cinnamon; and, lastly, sassafras, the aromatic wood which is said to be a powerful sudorific." Our guide conducted us across a field of Indian corn or maize.

"So it is when dissolved in alcohol, as we generally have it; but it is also used in lumps to drive away moths and for various other purposes. But I will tell you all about the tree, which grows in the islands of Sumatra and Borneo and bears the botanical name Dryobalanops camphora.

It is a Dryobalanops, and is not to be confused with the Cinnamomum camphora, from which the ordinary "camphor" is obtained and the wood of which retains the camphor smell and is largely used by the Chinese in the manufacture of boxes, the scented wood keeping off ants and other insects which are a pest in the Far East. The Borneo camphor tree is found only in Borneo and Sumatra.

But, upon inquiry of an ingenious person long resident in China, I learned that the Japan camphor is by no means a factitious substance, but the genuine produce of a tree growing in abundance in the latter country, different in every character from that of Sumatra or Borneo, and well known to our botanists by the name of Laurus camphora, L. He further informed me that the Chinese never mix the Sumatran camphor with that from Japan, but purchase the former for their own use, at the before-mentioned extravagant price, from an idea of its efficacy, probably superstitious, and export the latter as a drug not held in any particular estimation.

The ancients had a high opinion of camphor, a reputation which this drug preserved until, comparatively, a late period, for Scaliger informs that, in the 17th century, monks were compelled to smell and masticate it for the purpose of extinguishing concupiscence; and it was a favourite maxim of the medical school of Salernum that "Camphora per nares castrat odore mares."

LAURUS CAMPHORA, or "kusunoki," as it is called in Japan, grows mainly in those provinces in the islands Shikobu and Kinshin, which have the southern sea coast. It also grows abundantly in the province of Kishu. The amount of camphor varies according to the age of the tree. That of a hundred years old is tolerably rich in camphor.