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200 LIQUID STORAX. 11,6-7
and the shippers afterwards transfer it into porcelain vessels. The ilavour of
this incense is pure and lasting; the black variety easily melts and leaks
through the gourd; but by breaking the gourd and exposing it to the fire,
one may obtain something similar to the original substance. This is the
article now called tu-nau-'fiau or agourd dammar». 5
Note.
The Chinese word tu-nau transcribes the Malay damar. In the fifteenth century Ying-yai-
sheng-Ian the form ta-ma-'ir occurs (:^ ^^ 0|). Crawfurd, Hist. Indian Archipelago, I,
455, says: «In almost every country of the Indian islands there are trees which afford damar.
Bumphius enumerates four varieties. These produce different sorts of the rosin, which take 10
their names in commercial language from their colour or consistency. One is called Damar-batu
in Malay, or Bamar-selo in Javanese, which means the stony rosin, and another in common use
Damar-putch, or white rosin Damar is used for all the purposes to which we apply pitch,
but chiefly in paying the bottoms of ships and vesselso.
Marsden, Hist, of Sumatra, 128, says that white dammar is a species of turpentine, 15
yielded by a tree growing in Lampoon called cruyen, the wood of which is white and porous. It differs
from the common sort, or dammar tattoo, in being soft and whitish, having the consistence, and
somewhat the appearance of putty.» See also Yule and Burnell, Glossary, 228.
7.
LIQUID STORAX (^ -^ # yft).
Su-ho-Jiiang-yu comes from the countries of the Ta-shi. Its aroma and
taste are, on the whole, similar to those of tu-nau (dammar). Richness and
freedom from sediment are the first requisites in a good sample.
Foreigners commonly use it to rub their bodies with, and the natives of
Fu-kien use it in like fashion when afflicted with paralysis (;^ ^)., It is 25
mixed with jum-Uang (^ ^ or cdncenses of delicate aroma»), and may be
used in medicine.
Note.
The present day su-ho-Uang-yu or «sweet oil of storax», or su-ho-yu nstorax oil», which
occurs in commerce in China, is a product of the Liquidambar orientalis, L., of Asia Minor. The 30'
storax of the ancients, which became known to the Chinese in the early part of the Christian era as
a product of Ta-ts'in, and the name of which OTupa?, they may have mutilated into su-ho, was a
solid gum, and appears to have been a product of the Styrax officinalis, which is still common in
Syria. Sui-shu, 83,i6* mentions su^lio as a product of Po-ssi (Persia). Apparently the storax sent to
China in those early days was very largely adulterated, for Liang-shu, 54,i7», (covering the first half 35-
of the sixth century), says that in Western Asia (Ta-ts'in) astorax (su-ho) is made by mixing and
boiling the juice of various fragrant trees and that it is not a natural product. It is further said that
the inhabitants of Ta-ts'in gatherjhe su-Jio (plant, or parts of it), squeeze out its juice, and thus
make a balm or ointment [^ ^); they then sell this drug to the traders of other 'countries;
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