Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.9001

c10.9001

c. A.D. 70.—“We are beholden to Syria for Malabathrum. This is a tree that beareth leaves rolled up round together, and seeming to the eie withered. Out of which there is drawn and pressed an Oile for perfumers to use. . . . And yet there commeth a better kind thereof from India. . . The rellish thereof ought to resemble Nardus at the tongue end. The perfume or smell that . . . the leafe yeeldeth when it is boiled in wine, passeth all others. It is straunge and monstrous which is observed in the price; for it hath risen from one denier to three hundred a pound.”—Pliny, xii. 26, in Ph. Holland.