Camphor

“ In consideration of his hospitable treatment, I sent the old mʿallem a bit of camphor and a parcel of cloves. Camphor is a most precious thing in these regions, and highly esteemed by the nobler classes, and I cannot too strongly recommend a traveller to provide himself with a supply of it. It is obvious that a small quantity, if well kept, will last him a long time. He may find an opportunity of laying a man of first-rate importance under lasting obligations by a present of a small piece of camphor. ”

“ For to reach the Camphor-Worm you need to be a diver in deep waters, whose weight crushes a man; and to touch its lips you must master the loathing of your nature; [pg 58] and to carry away its breath you must have strength of will and endurance beyond what is mortal.' 'You trouble me with things I need not know,' cried Noodle. ”

“ But whence did Herodotus borrow the tale?
[FN#24] Sindbad correctly describes the primitive way of extracting camphor, a drug unknown to the Greeks and Romans, introduced by the Arabs and ruined in reputation by M. Raspail. The best Laurus Camphora grows in the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo: although Marsden (Marco Polo) declares that the tree is not found South of the Equator. In the Calc. Edit. of two hundred Nights the camphor-island (or peninsula) is called “Al-Ríhah” which is the Arab name for Jericho-town. ”

“ The camphor is found in the concrete state in which we see it, in natural fissures or crevices of the wood, but does not exhibit any exterior appearance by which its existence can be previously ascertained, and the persons whose employment it is to collect it usually cut down a number of trees, almost at random, before they find one that contains a sufficient quantity to repay their labour, although always assisted in their research by a professional conjurer, whose skill must be chiefly employed in concealing or accounting for his own mistakes. ”

“ Some people believe in camphor and Hoffmann's drops, but camphor is so weakening and is really only fit for moths. No, dear Frau Nimptsch, nature must help itself, and especially when one is so young, and so I believe in sweating. ”

“ But if all omens are favourable, and they find that the tree is likely to prove rich [168] in camphor, they plant near their hut a stake, whereof the outer surface has been cut into curled shavings and tufts down the sides and at the top. (I suggest as possible that these shavings represent the curling tongues of flame which communicate with the unseen Powers.) When the Kayans are collecting camphor, they are under no restrictions as to food, nor are they forbidden to speak to people whom they may meet, although they will not allow strangers to enter their hut. ”

“ It is recorded, in the Gazetteer of the Tanjore district, that, when a man dies, camphor is not burnt in the house, but at the junction of three lanes. Some Paraiyans, on the occurrence of a death in a family, put a pot filled with dung or water, a broomstick and a fire-brand at some place where three roads meet, or in front of the house, in order to prevent the ghost from returning. ”

“ The leathery sheath of the leaf-stalk of the Penang palm is used as a plate for food, and it must not be washed during the whole time of an expedition for camphor, for fear that the camphor will dissolve and disappear from the crevices of the tree.
No one is allowed to bathe except at daylight and at nightfall; no song is sung; no deer of any species should be eaten at these times; the collectors are, however, allowed to hunt for smaller game with the blow-pipe. ”

“ They have dresses of cotton, and almost all the animals that we have, except the sheep, the ox, and the ass; but their horses are very small and feeble. The produce of camphor, of ginger, and of cinnamon, is great among them. Thence our men, having saluted this king, and heaped him with presents, directed their course to the Moluccas, which had been pointed out to them by the same king. They came to the shores of the island of Solo, where they heard that there were pearls as big as dove's eggs, and sometimes as hen's eggs, but which can only be fished up from the very deepest sea. ”

“ There are special days and weeks at each shrine and temple, when there is more merit in offering gifts than at other times, and on these days people throng to lay their presents before the gods. They bring oil or camphor for the priest to burn in a censer which has a large lamp in the centre for the camphor and five small ones round it for the oil, and when the priest lights the lamps he waves the censer before the idol, and the sweet scent of the camphor fills the shrine. Others bring melted butter and rice, and others fruit and flowers. ”

“ The camphor-tree is not only valuable for the camphor it yields, but also for its timber, which is very straight and free from knots and other imperfections. This is a favorite region for tigers, and I have seen one or more skins at the house of each official. A short time since, an elephant came down here from the interior, [434] but the natives failed to secure so valuable a prize. Herds of them are said to frequently appear in the Silindong plateau. The tusks of one taken here lately were sold for one thousand guilders (four hundred Mexican dollars) . ”

“ The chief camphor workers are the Punans, who are either hired as guides and helpers by the Kayans, Kenyahs, Sibops, or Ibans, or else they collect the camphor themselves and barter it with the other natives, who in turn sell it to the Chinese. ”

“ We passed the night together in a safe and pleasant place, beyond measure rejoiced at my deliverance from the Valley of Serpents and my arrival in an inhabited land; and on the morrow we set out and journeyed over the mighty range of mountains, seeing many serpents in the valley, till we came to a fair great island, wherein was a garden of huge camphor trees under each of which an hundred men might take shelter. When the folk have a mind to get camphor, they bore into the upper part of the bole with a long iron ”

“ Desc. General de Affrica, Pt. I. Bk. iii. f. 87v.
CAMP, s. In the Madras Presidency [as well as in N. India] an {151b}official not at his headquarters is always addressed as 'in Camp.'
CAMPHOR, s. There are three camphors:—
a. The Bornean and Sumatran camphor from Dryobalanops aromatica.
b. The camphor of China and Japan, from Cinnamomum Camphora. (These are the two chief camphors of commerce; the first immensely exceeding the second in market value: see Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. xi. Note 3.) ”

“ When they have selected the camphor tree, which they intend to cut down, they build their hut near it, and then, after the first strokes of the axe, if they hear the note of an Omen bird, they give up work for the rest of the day, and sit idle in their hut. ”

“ Then they send for a mollah; who reads the Koran in a very loud sing-song tone till death ensues, the last thirst being alleviated meantime by sharbat dropped into the mouth. Camphor and other sweet spices are burned at the grave. If they burn well and all is pure afterwards, they say that the deceased person has gone to heaven; if they burn feebly and smokily, and there is any unpleasantness from the grave, they say that the spirit is in perdition. A Bakhtiari grave is a very shallow trench. ”

“ As the variform creature that was George Campbell crawled between the black blocks of stone thousands of worm-shapes prostrated themselves in the scintillating dust before it. A godlike power seemed to emanate from its weaving body as it moved with a slow, undulant motion toward a throne of spiritual empire transcending all the sovereignties of earth.
A trapper stumbling wearily through the dense woods of earth near the tent where the worm-creature dwelt in the body of George Campbell came to the gleaming waters of the lake and discerned something dark floating there. ”

“ It has a communication with the palate, and when filled with air looks like a spire; when empty it becomes pendulous. His note is loud and clear, like the sound of a bell, and may be heard at the distance of three miles. In the midst of these extensive wilds, generally on the dried top of an aged mora, almost out of gun-reach, you will see the campanero. No sound or song from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest, not even the clearly pronounced "Whip-poor-will" from the goat-sucker, cause such astonishment as the toll of the campanero. ”

“ The last night out the head-hunters always sleep near their kampong, and early next morning, while it is still dark, they come singing. The people of the kampong waken, array themselves in their best finery, and go to meet them, the women wearing their newest skirts and bringing pieces of nice cloth to present to the conquerors. ”

“ Strangers dare not go to the mountains where the rhubarb grows, on account of certain poisonous plants, which occasion any beasts that feed upon them to cast their hoofs; but the beasts of the country know this plant, and avoid feeding upon it Campion [6] is a great city, and is the chief place in all Tangut. ”

“ Campbell's account for fowls, pork, etc., furnished to the garrison, was by no means to be despised. Thus, by the kindness of others, his own exertions, and a judicious employment of his small capital, Mr. Campbell promised to be in a few years a wealthy and independent man. As soon as the harvest was in, Malachi and John, who were of no use in thrashing out the corn, renewed their hunting expeditions, and seldom returned without venison. ”

“ In July, Campian was taken at Lyfford, in Berkshire, and was committed to the Tower; and Parsons, seeing no prospect of long escaping [299] pursuit, contrived to get over again to the Continent. Campian was repeatedly racked, and under the force of torture and the promises that no injury should be done to his entertainers, he related the whole course of his peregrinations in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Denbigh, Northampton, Warwick, Bedford, Buckingham, and elsewhere, and the names of those who had given him hospitality. ”

“ These my companions, this my roof, my home!
‘Not of the senses’—Campbell is not a lover of impressionism for its own sake, but he loves the simple, colorful aspects of Nature for the joy, comfort and peace which they give to ‘the inward soul.’ He has his equals as an impressionistic colorist, but he is supreme when he paints a phenomenon or aspect of Nature in monotone or in subdued tones as in pastel, or when he etches a scene with a Whistler-like feeling for atmosphere, shadow, and chiaroscuro, and for line. ”

“ He seems to have been a dreamy, quick-witted but somewhat indolent lad of whom his masters said, ‘if Campbell likes to work no one can beat him’; hot-tempered too, as Highlanders, rightly or wrongly, are credited with being. ”

“ Remarks.—Campbell has the following note at the end of the tale, from which it would seem that in 1870 at least he was very nearly being an Indiamaniac.
"So ends this horse-riding story. Taking it as it is, with the test of language added, nothing short of an Asian origin will account for it. A Gaelic riddle makes 'a black horse' mean the invisible wind, and a theorist might suppose this horse to be the air personified. As Greece is mentioned, he might be Pegasus, who had to do with wells. But he had wings, and he was white, and there is nothing in classical fable like this Atlantic myth. ”

“ He promptly presented himself, and was received as Mercœur’s first recruit, and received not as a postulant, but as a novice. As Anthony Wood tells us, “he was esteemed by the General of that Order to be a person every way complete.” Four years later, Campion most affectionately thanked his own old tutor, John Bavand, for unasked “introductions, help and money,” which had been supplied since he came to Rome. He speaks of himself as “one whom you knew never could repay you, but who was at the point, so to speak, of death. ”

“ When the soldiers arrested and imprisoned Pomponio, they neglected to search him, thinking, no doubt, that by no possible means could he escape from them, chained as securely as if to the solid rock itself. Pomponio had, stuck in his belt underneath his shirt, a hunting-knife, his trusty weapon and constant companion. No one who has not lived in the wilderness can have any idea of the value of the hunting-knife. The uses to which it can be put are countless. ”

“ When the meeting in the hall broke up, the chamberlain said to the prior, “We shall yet have the pleasure of burning Girolamo as a necromancer!”
“An he be not the Jew that cannot die,” quoth the prior.
When the Salernitan reached the Camp that evening he said to the Lord of Brunn, “Certes the monks of Ely will no longer say I am a wizard; but there be traitors among them, and much do I fear that their rebellious stomachs will make traitors of them all!”
“Against that must we provide,” quoth the Lord Hereward; “to-morrow we must go get them corn and wine from the Normans. ”

“ If want began to be felt among the monks of Ely, it is not to be believed but that it was felt still more sharply among the Saxon fighting men collected in the Camp of Refuge. But the stomachs of these warriors were not so dainty as the stomachs of the monks, and the commonalty of them, being accustomed to fare hard before now, made no complaint. ”

“ We set out from Luxor one morning in November, our caravan consisting in all of twenty-three camels, nine of which were ridden by our four selves, my servant, two guards, the Shêkh of the camelmen, and the guide, while fourteen were loaded with the three tents, the baggage, and the water-tanks, and were tended by a dozen camelmen who made the journey mainly on foot. Our road led eastwards from Luxor past the temple of the goddess Mut at Karnak, reflected in its sacred lake, and so along the highroad towards the rising sun. ”