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in wine, it was believed to be efficacious against the bitings of
venomous beasts and mad dogs. A variety called Smith’s or Carpenter’s
Balm, or Bawm, was noted as a vulnerary, and Pliny
describes it of magical virtue. Gerarde remarks, “ though it
be but tied to his sword that hath given the wound, it stancheth
the blood.” On account of its being a favourite plant of the bees,
it was one of the herbs diredted by the ancients to be placed in
the hive, to render it agreeable to the swarm: hence it was called
Apiastrum.—— The astrologers claimed the herb both for Jupiter
and the Sun. In connedtion with the Garden Balm, Aubrey
relates a legend of the Wandering Jew, the scene of which he
places in the Staffordshire moors. When on the weary way to
Golgotha, Jesus Christ, fainting and sinking beneath the burden
of the cross, asked the Jew Ahasuerus for a cup of water to
cool his parched throat, he spurned the supplication, and bade
him speed on faster. “ I go,” said the Saviour, “ but thou shalt
thirst and tarry till I come.” And ever since that hour, by day
and night, through the long centuries, he has been doomed to
wander about the earth, ever craving for water, and ever expedting
the Day of Judgment, which alone shall end his frightful pilgrimage.
One Whitsun evening, overcome with thirst, he knocked at the
door of a Staffordshire/cottager, and craved of him a cup of small
beer. The cottager, who was wasted with a lingering consumption,
asked him in and gave him the desired refreshment. After finishing
the beer, Ahasuerus asked his host the nature of the disease he
was suffering from, and being told that the dodtors had given him
up, said, “ Friend, I will tell thee what thou shalt do; and by the
help and power of Almighty God above, thou shalt be well. T omorrow,
when thou risest up, go into thy garden, and gather there
three Balm-leaves, and put them into a cup of thy small beer.
Drink as often as you need, and when the cup is empty, fill it again,
and put in fresh Balm-leaves every fourth day, and thou shalt see,
through our Lord’s great goodness and mercy, that before twelve
days shall be past, thy disease shall be cured and thy body altered.”
So saying, and declining to eat, he departed and was never seen
again. But the cottager gathered his Balm-leaves, followed the
prescription of the Wandering Jew, and before twelve days were
passed was a new man.
B A LM O F G I L E A D .—The mountains of Gilead, in the
east of the Holy Land, were covered with fragrant shrubs, the
most plentiful being the Amyris, which, yielded the celebrated Balm
of Gilead, a precious gum which, at a very early period, the
Ishmaelites or Arabian carriers trafficked in. It was to a party of
these merchants that Joseph was sold by his brethren as they came
from Gilead, with their camels, bearing spicery, and Balm, and
Myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt (Gen. xxxvii., 25). There
were three producffions from this tree, all highly esteemed by the
ancients, v iz .: Xylohalsamum, a decodtion of the new twigs; the Cavpoa
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halsamum, an expression of the native fruit; and the Opobahamum,
or juice, the finest kind, composed of the greenish liquor found in
the kernel of the fruit. The principal quantity of Balm has, however,
always been produced by excision. The juice is received in
a small earthen bottle, and every day’s produce is poured into a
larger, which is kept closely corked. So marvellous were the properties
of this Balm considered, that in order to test its quality,
the operator dipped his finger in the juice, and then set fire to it,
expedting fully to remain scathless if the Balm was of average
strength. The Balm of Gilead has always had a wonderful reputation
as a cosmetic among ladies. The manner of applying it in
the East is thus given by a traveller in Abyssinia:—“ You first
go into the tepid bath, till the pores are sufficiently opened ; you
then anoint yourself with a small quantity, and as much as the
vessels will absorb: never-fading youth and beauty are said to be the
consequences.” B y the Arabs, it is employed as a stomachic and
antiseptic, and is believed by them to prevent any infection of the
plague. Tradition relates that there is an aspic that guards the
Balm-tree, and will allow no one to approach. Fortunately, however,
it has a weakness—it cannot endure the sound of a musical
instrument. As soon as it hears the approaching torment, it
thrusts its tail into one of its ears, and rubs the other against the
ground, till it is filled with mud. While it is lying in this helpless
condition, the Balm-gatherers go round to the other side of the
tree, and hurry away with their spoil. Maundevile says that
the true Balm-trees only grew in Egypt (near Cairo), and in India.
The Egyptian trees were tended solely by Christians, as they
refused to bear if the husbandmen were Saracens. It was necessary,
also, to cut the branches with a sharp flint-stone or bone, for
if touched with iron, the Balm lost its incomparable virtue. The
Indian Balm-trees grew “ in that desert where the trees of the
Sun and of the Moon spake to King Alexander,” and warned him
of his death. The fruit of these Balm-trees possessed such
marvellous properties, that the people of the country, who were in
the habit of partaking of it, lived four or five hundred years in
consequence.
B AM BO O .—The Bambusa Arundimcea is one of the sacred
plants of India : it is the tree of shelter, audience, and friendship.
As jungle fires were thought to be caused by the stems of Bamboos
rubbing together, the tree derived from that fact a mystic and holy
character, as an emblem of the sacred fire. Indian anchorites
carry a long Bamboo staff with seven nodes, as a mark of their
calling. At Indian weddings, the bride and bridegroom, as part of
the nuptial ceremony, get into two Bamboo baskets, placed side by
side, and remain standing therein for some specified time. The
savage Indian tribe called Garrows possess neither temples nor
altars, but they set up a pillar of Bamboo before their huts, and
decorate it with flowers and tufts of cotton, and sacrifice before it to