attar is worth about forty dollars. Bishop Heber also speaks of its enormous price at Ghazepoor, where the variation in price is also very great, being, according to Langles, sometimes as low as eight dollars an ounce.

At one time, soon after its discovery, it was valued at about five times its weight in gold. Until quite recently, it was worth its weight in gold, but now sells in Paris for about one quarter that value.

Attar is rarely found pure in commerce; it is always more or less adulterated. In the countries where it is manufactured, they frequently increase the quantity of the attar by mixing scrapings of sandal-wood with the rose-petals during the process of distillation. Kæmpfer, a German writer, states this mode of adulteration to have been known a long time, and adds that the sandal-wood gives additional strength to the attar; but another author, who has also made some researches on the subject, asserts that the sandal-wood injures the delicacy of the attar, which is more sweet and agreeable when mild than when strong.

The quality as well as the quantity of attar which they obtain from roses depends upon the proportion of aroma which they contain; and this is found more developed at the South, and in a warm climate. The kinds of roses used in distillation have also a great influence on the quality of the attar. In Persia and the East, the Musk Rose is generally used, and the Damask is employed in France.

Although roses are distilled in large quantities at Paris for perfumery and for medical purposes, very little attar is made, because the proportion of the manufactured article to the roses required is, in that climate, extremely small; so small, in fact, that, according to one writer, five thousand parts in weight of rose-petals will scarcely produce one part of essential oil. This limited manufacture

exists only at Grasse and Montpelier, in France, and at Florence, in Italy. Some years since, the adulteration of attar was successfully practiced in the south of France by mixing with it the essence distilled from the leaves of the Rose Geranium (Pelargonium capitatum). This adulteration is very difficult to detect, because this last essence possesses the same properties as the attar; its odor is almost the same; like that, it is of a lemon color; it crystalizes at a lower temperature; and its density is very little greater.

The attar, when pure, is, beyond comparison, the most sweet and agreeable of all perfumes. Its fragrance is the most delicate conceivable, and equals that of the freshly expanded Rose. It is also so strong and penetrating, that a single drop, or as much as will attach itself to the point of a needle, is sufficient to perfume an apartment for several days; and if the small flask in which it is sold, although tightly corked and sealed, is placed in a drawer, it will perfume all the contents.

When in a congealed or crystalized state, the attar will liquefy at a slight heat; and if the flask is merely held in the hand, a few minutes will suffice to render it liquid. In the East much use is made of the attar, particularly in the harems. In Europe and America it is employed in the manufacture of cordials, and in the preparation of various kinds of perfumery.

Rose-water, or the liquid obtained from rose-petals by distillation, is very common, and is found in almost every country where the arts and luxuries of life have at all advanced.

Pliny tells us that rose-water was a favorite perfume of the Roman ladies, and the most luxurious used it even in their baths. This, however, must have been some preparation different from that now known as rose-water, and was probably a mere tincture of roses.

The ancients could have known nothing of rose-water,

for they were entirely ignorant of the art of distillation, which only came into practice after the invention of the alembic by the Arabs. Some attribute this discovery to Rhazes, an Arabian physician, who lived in the early part of the tenth century; and others attribute it to Avicenna, who lived at Chyraz, in the latter part of the same century. It is also attributed to Geber, a celebrated Arabian alchemist, who lived in Mesopotamia in the eighth century. Subsequent, therefore, to this discovery of the alembic, we find, according to Gmelin, in his history of the preparation of distilled waters, that the first notice of rose-water is by Aben-Zohar, a Jewish physician, of Seville, in Spain, who recommends it for diseases of the eye. From the Arabs, this invention passed among the Greeks and Romans, as we are informed by Actuarius, a writer of the eleventh or twelfth century.

In France, the first distillation of rose-water appears to have been made by Arnaud de Villeneuve, a physician, who lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century.

The Orientals made great use of this water in various ways in their houses, and in the purification of their temples when they thought they had been profaned by any other worship than that of Mahomet. There are many anecdotes told by historians of the use of rose-water by the Sultans on various occasions; and several of these, as Chateaubriand remarks, are stories worthy of the East. It is related of Saladin, that when he took Jerusalem from the Crusaders, in 1187, he would not enter the Mosque of Omar, which had been converted into a church by the Christians, until the walls and courts had been thoroughly washed and purified with rose-water brought from Damascus. Five hundred camels, it is stated, were scarcely sufficient to convey all the rose-water used for this purpose. An Arabian writer tells us that the princes of the family of Saladin, hastening to Jerusalem to worship Allah, Malek-Abdul, and his nephew, Taki-Eddin, distin

guished themselves above all others. The latter repaired with all his followers to the "Chapel of the Holy Cross," and taking a broom himself, he swept all the dirt from the floor, washed the walls and the ceiling several times with pure water, and then washed them with rose-water; having thus cleansed and purified the place, he distributed large alms to the poor.

Bibars, the fourth Sultan of the Mameluke dynasty, who reigned from 1260 to 1277, caused the Caaba of the temple of Mecca to be washed with rose-water.

Mahomet II., after the capture of Constantinople, in 1453, would not enter the Mosque of St. Sophia, which had been formerly used as a church, until he had caused it to be washed with rose-water.

It is stated by a French historian that the greatest display of gorgeous magnificence at that period was made in 1611, by the Sultan Ahmed I., at the dedication of the new Caaba, which had been built or repaired at his expense; amber and aloes were burnt in profusion, and, in the extravagance of Eastern language, oceans of rosewater were set afloat, for washing the courts and interior surface of the walls. Rose-water is by no means so generally used now as for a few hundred years subsequent to its invention. In France, during the reign of Philip Augustus, it was a necessary article at court. It was formerly the custom to carry large vases filled with rose-water to baptisms. Illustrating this custom, Bayle relates a story of Rousard, the French poet: "It nearly happened that the day of his birth was also that of his death; for when he was carried from the Chateau de La Poissoniére to the church of the place to be baptized, the nurse who carried him carelessly let him fall; his fall, however, was upon the grass and flowers, which received him softly; it so happened, that a young lady, who carried a vase filled with rose-water and a collection of flowers, in her haste to aid in helping the child, overturned on his head a large

part of the rose-water. This incident was considered a presage of the good odor with which France would one day be filled by the flowers of his learned writings."

At one time rose-water was largely consumed in the preparation of food and the seasoning of various dishes. In the "Private Life of the French," it is mentioned that in the fourteenth century, the Comte d'Etampes gave a feast in which a large part of the dishes and even the chestnuts were prepared with rose-water. It is still used to flavor various dishes, but its principal use is in affections of the eyelids, or as a perfume for the toilet. The principal consumption of rose-water is, however, in the East, where the inhabitants are very fond of perfumes. In Persia a very large quantity is made annually for domestic use. They deem it an excellent beverage mixed with pure water.

The Corinth Grape, mixed with rose-water, and a slight infusion of spices, is the nectar so much in vogue among the Greeks of Morea. The Persians, according to Lebruyn, sprinkle with rose-water those who visit them. They also make it an important article of commerce; large quantities are sent to different parts of the East, and entire cargoes are sometimes shipped to India.

In Egypt, the nobles and wealthy inhabitants consume large quantities of rose-water; they scatter it over their divans and other places where they spend their time; they also offer it with confectionery to their visitors.

The custom of offering rose-water to a guest is alluded to by Shakespeare, who makes one of his characters in Padua say:

"What is it your honor will command?

Let one attend him with a silver bason

Full of rose-water, and bestrewed with flowers."

Almost all the rose-water used in Egypt is distilled in the province of Fayoum, from the pale rose. "About the middle of February, in Fayoum," says a French writer,