part 18

(1877).

[2244] Seemann, _Flora Vitiensis_, 1865-73. 210-215.

[2245] The natural woods having been nearly exhausted, the tree is now under culture in the island. _Catalogue des produits des colonies françaises, Exposition de 1878_, p. 332; they state there that the island of Nossi-bé, on the north-western coast of Madagascar, also supplies some sandal-wood.

[2246] Whether _Santalum lanceolatum_ Br., a tree found throughout N. and E. Australia, and called _sandal-wood_ by the colonists, is an object of trade, we know not.

[2247] Vincent, _Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients_, ii. (1807) 378.

[2248] Migne, _Patrologiæ Cursus_, series Græca, tom. 88. 446.

Sandal-wood is named by Masudi[2249] as one of the costly aromatics of the Eastern Archipelago. In India it was used in the most sacred buildings, of which a memorable example still exists in the famous gates of Somnath, supposed to be 1000 years old.[2250]

In the 11th century sandal-wood was found among the treasures of the Egyptian khalifs, as stated in our article on camphor at page 511.

Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus, who flourished at Salerno in the 11th century, was one of the earliest to mention Sandalum.[2251] Ebn Serabi, called Serapion the Younger, who lived about the same period, was acquainted with _white_, _yellow_, and _red_ sandal-wood.[2252] All three kinds of sandal-wood also occur in a list of drugs[2253] in use at Frankfort, _circa_ A.D. 1450; and in the _Compendium Aromatariorum_ of Saladinus, published in 1488, we find mentioned as proper to be kept by the Italian apothecary,—“_Sandali trium generum, scilicet albi, rubii et citrini_.”

Whether the _red_ sandal here coupled with _white_ and _yellow_ was the inodorous wood of _Pterocarpus santalinus_, now called _Lignum santalinum rubrum_ or _Red Sanders_ (see p. 199), is extremely doubtful. It may have meant real sandal wood, of which three shades, designated _white_, _red_, and _yellow_, are still recognized by the Indian traders.[2254]

On the other hand, we learn from Barbosa[2255] that about 1511 _white_ and _yellow_ sandal-wood were worth at Calicut on the Malabar Coast from eight to ten times as much as the _red_, which would show that in his day the red was not a mere variety of the other two, but something far cheaper, like the Red Sanders Wood of modern commerce.

In 1635 the subsidy levied on sandal-wood imported into England was 1_s._ per lb. on the _white_, and 2_s._ per lb. on the _yellow_.[2256]

[2249] I. 222 in the work quoted in the Appendix.

[2250] They are 11 feet high and 9 feet wide, and richly carved out of sandal-wood; they were constructed for the temple of Somnath in Guzerat, once esteemed the holiest temple in India. On its destruction in A.D. 1025, the gates were carried off to Ghuzni in Afghanistan, where they remained until the capture of that city by the English in 1842, when they were taken back to India. They are now preserved in the citadel of Agra. For a representation of the gates, see _Archæeologia_, xxx. (1844) pl. 14.

[2251] Opera, Basil. 1536-39, _Lib. de Gradibus_, 369.

[2252] _Liber Serapionis aggregatus in medicinis simplicibus_, 1473.

[2253] Flückiger, _Die Frankfurter Liste_, Halle, 1873. 11.

[2254] Thus Milburn in his _Oriental Commerce_ (1813) says—“ ... the deeper the colour, the higher is the perfume; and hence the merchants sometimes divide sandal into _red_, _yellow_, and _white_, but these are all different shades of the same colour, and do not arise from any difference in the species of the tree.”—(i. 291.)

[2255] Ramusio, _Navigationi et Viaggi_, etc., Venet. 1554. fol. 357 b., _Libro di Odoardo Barbosa Portoghese_.

[2256] _The Rates of Marchandizes_, Lond. 1635.

The first figure and satisfactory description of _Santalum album_ occur in the _Herbarium Amboinense_ of Rumphius (ii. tab. 11).

=Production=—The dry tracts producing this valuable wood occupy patches of a strip of country lying chiefly in Mysore and Coimbatore, about 250 miles long, north and north-west of the Neilgherry Hills, and having Coorg and Canara between it and the Indian Ocean; also a piece of country further eastward in the districts of Salem and North Arcot, where the tree grows from the sea-level up to an elevation of 3000 feet. In Mysore, where sandal-wood is most extensively produced, the trees all belong to Government, and can only be felled by the proper officers. This privilege was conferred on the East India Company by a treaty with Hyder Ali, made 8 August 1770, and the monopoly has been maintained to the present day. The Mysore animal exports of sandal wood are about 700 tons, valued at £27,000.[2257] They are shipped from Mangalore.

A similar monopoly existed in the Madras Presidency until a few years ago, when it was abandoned. But sandal-wood is still a source of revenue to the Madras Government, which by the systematic management of the Forest Department has of late years been regularly increasing. The quantity of sandal-wood felled in the Reserved Forests during the year 1872-3 was returned as 15,329 maunds (547½ tons).[2258]

The sandal-wood tree, which is indigenous to the regions just mentioned, used to be reproduced by seeds sown spontaneously or by birds; but it is now being raised in regular plantations, the seeds being sown two or three in a hole with a chili (_Capsicum_) seed, the latter producing a quick-growing seedling which shades the sandal while young.[2259] It is probable that the nurse-plant affords _sustenance_, for it has been shown[2260] that _Santalum_ is parasitic, its roots attaching themselves by tuber-like processes to those of many other plants; and it is also said that young sandal plants thrive best when grass is allowed to grow up in the seed-beds.

The trees attain their prime in 20 to 30 years, and have then trunks as much as a foot in diameter. A tree having been felled, the branches are lopped off, and the trunk allowed to lie on the ground for several months, during which time the white ants eat away the greater part of the inodorous sapwood. The trunk is then roughly trimmed, sawn into billets 2 to 2½ feet long, and taken to the forest depots. There the wood is weighed, subjected to a second and more careful trimming, and classified according to quality. In some parts it is customary not to fell but to dig the tree up; in others the root is dug up after the trunk has been cut down,—the root affording valuable wood, which with the chips and sawdust are preserved for distillation, or for burning in the native temples. The sap wood and branches are worthless.[2261]

[2257] B. H. Baden Powell, _Report on the Administration of the Forest Department in the several provinces under the Government of India_, 1872-73, Calcutta, 1874. vol i. 27.

[2258] _Report of the Administration of the Madras Presidency during the year 1872-73_, Madras, 1874. 18. 143.

[2259] Beddome, _Flora Sylvatica for Southern India_, 1872. 256.

[2260] Scott in _Journ. of Agricult. and Horticult. Soc. of India_, Calcutta, vol. ii.