In the north-western provinces of India (laza is said to be brought from Surat and Calcutta. Garcias ab Horto (Clusius, Exotic. Hst.), writing on this subject near the former place, says that it is called in Malacca garro, selectissimum autem Calambac.' Dr. Roxburgh, writing in Calcutta, states that ugooroo is the Sanscrit name of the incense or aloe-wood, which in Hindee is called zegoor, and in Persian aod-hindee; and that there is little or no doubt that the real calanzbac or agallochunz of the ancients is yielded by an im mense tree, a native of the mountainous tracts east and south-east from Silhet, in about 24° of N. lati tude. This plant, he says, cannot be distinguished from thriving plants exactly of the same age of the Caro de Malacca received from that place, and then in the Botanic Garden of Calcutta. He further states that small quantities of agallochum are sometimes imported into Calcutta by sea from the eastward ; but that such is always deemed in ferior to that of Silhet (Flora Ind. ii. 423).
The Caro de Malacca was first described by Lamarck from a specimen presented to him by Sonnerat as that of the tree which yielded the boil d'aigle of commerce. Lamarck named this tree Aquilaria Malaccensis, which Cavanilles after wards changed unnecessarily to A. ovata. As Dr. Roxburgh found that his plant belonged to the same genus, he named it Aquilaria Agallochum, but it is printed Agallocha in his Flora Indica, probably by an oversight. He is of opinion that the Agallochzem secundariunz of Rumphius (Arab. ii. 34, t. to), which that author received under the name of Agallachum malaccense, also belongs to the same genus, as well as the Sixfoo of Kmmpfer (Amern. Exot. p. 903), and the Ophispernzum sinense of Loureiro.
These plants belong to the Linnican class and order Decandria monogynia, and the natural family of .4quilarinea ; at all events, we have two trees ascertained as yielding this fragrant wood—one, Aquilaria Agallochum, a native of Silhet ; and the other, A. ovata or malaccensis, a native of Malacca. The missionary Loureiro, in his description of the flora of Cochin-China, describes a third plant, which he names Akexy/u/n, 'idem est ac lignum aloe,' and the species A. Agallochum, represented as a large tree growing in the lofty mountains of Champava belonging to Cochin-China, about the t3th degree of N. latitude, near the great river `Lavum :"Omnes yeti aloes ligni species ex hac arbore procedunt, etiam pretiosissima, gum dici solet Calambac.' This tree, belonging to the class and order Decandria monogynia of Linnmus, and the natural family of Leguminosa, has always been admitted as one of the trees yielding Agallochum. But as Loureiro himself confesses that he had only once seen a mutilated branch of the tree in flower, which, by long carriage, had the petals, anthers, and stigma much bruised and torn, it is not impos sible that this may also belong to the genus Aqui laria, especially as his tree agrees in so many points with that described by Dr. Roxburgh, as
already observed by the latter in his Kist. Flor. Ind. 1. c. Rumphius has described and figured a third plant, which he named arbor exccans; from 'Blindhout,' in consequence of its acrid juice de stroying sight—whence the generic name of Excie.
caria ; the specific one of agallochum he applied, because its wood is similar to and often substituted for agallochum ; Lignum hoc tantam habet cum agallocho similitudinem.' And he states that it was sometimes exported as such to Europe, and even to China. This tree, the Exccecaria agallo chum, of the Linnan class and order Dicecia triandria, and the natural family of Euphorbiace, is also very common in the delta of the CAlltiges, where it is called Genie ; 'but the wood-cutters of the Sunderbunds,' Dr. Roxburgh says, who are the people best acquainted with the nature of this tree, report the pale, white, milky juice thereof to be highly acrid and very dangerous.' The only use made of the tree, as far as Dr. Roxburgh could learn, was for charcoal and firewood. Agallochum of any sort is, he believed, never found in this tree, which is often the only one quoted as that yielding agila-wood ; but, notwithstanding the nega tive testimony of Dr. Roxburgh, it may, in par ticular situations, as stated by Rumphius, yield a substitute for that fragrant and long-famed wood.
Having thus traced the agallochum of commerce to the trees which yield it, it is extremely interest ing to find that the Malay name of the substance, which is agila, is so little different from the Hebrew; not more, indeed, than may be observed in many well-known words, where the hard g of one language is turned into the aspirate in another. It is there. fore probable that it was by the name agila (aghil, in Rosenmiiller, Bibl. Bot. p. 234) that this wood was first known in commerce, being conveyed across the Bay of Bengal to the island of Ceylon or the peninsula of India, which the Arab or Phceni cian traders visited at very remote periods, and where they obtained the early-known spices and precious stones of India. It is not a little curious that Captain Hamilton (Account of E. Indies, i. 68) mentions it by the name of agala, an odoriferous wood at Muscat. We know that the Portuguese, when they reached the eastern coast from the peninsula, obtained it under this name, whence they called it pao d'aguila, or eagle-wood; which is the origin of the generic name Aquilaria.