CHAP. 9.—WHEN EBONY WAS FIRST SEEN AT ROME. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF EBONY.

Pompeius Magnus displayed ebony on the occasion of his triumph over Mithridates. Fabianus declares, that this wood will give out no flame; it burns, however, with a very agreeable smell. There are two kinds[1] of ebony; the rarest kind is the best, and is produced from a tree that is singularly free from knots. The wood is black and shining, and pleasing to the eye, without any adventitious aid from art. The other kind of ebony is the produce of a shrub which resembles the cytisus, and is to be found scattered over the whole of India.

1. Fée remarks, that the words of Pliny do not afford us any means of judging precisely what tree it was that he understood by the name of ebony. He borrows his account mainly from Theophrastus.