Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 | Page 9

Solomon. Considered a certain remedy for all kinds of poison, it
was eagerly purchased by those of high station at a period when that
treacherous destroyer so frequently mocked the steel-clad guards of
royalty itself--when poisoning was the crime of the great, before it had
descended from the corrupt and crafty court to the less ceremonious
cottage. Nor was it only as an antidote that its virtues were famed. A
small portion of its hard and corneous kernel, triturated with water in a
vessel of porphyry, and mixed, according to the nature of the disease
and skill of the physician, with the powder of red or white coral, ebony,
or stag's horns, was supposed to be able to put to flight all the maladies
that are the common lot of suffering humanity. Even the simple act of
drinking pure water out of a part of its polished shell was esteemed a
salutary remedial process, and was paid for at a correspondently
extravagant price. Doubtless, in many instances it did effect cures; not,
however, by any peculiar inherent sanative property, but merely
through the unbounded confidence of the patient: similar cases are well
known to medical science; and at the present day, when the
manufacture and sale of an alleged universal heal-all is said to be one
of the shortest and surest paths that lead to fortune--when in our own
country 'the powers that be' encourage rather than check such wholesale
empiricism--we cannot consistently condemn the more ancient quack,
who having, in all faith, given an immense sum for a piece of nut-shell,
remunerated himself by selling draughts of water out of it to his
believing dupes. The extraordinary history of the nut, as it was then

told, assisted to keep up the delusion. The Indian merchants said, that
there was only one tree in the world that produced it; that the roots of
that tree were fixed, 'where never fathom-line did touch the ground,' in
the bed of the Indian Ocean, near to Java, among the Ten Thousand
Islands of the far East; but its branches, rising high above the waters,
flourished in the bright sunshine and free air. On the topmost bough
dwelt a griffin, that sallied forth every evening to the adjacent islands,
to procure an elephant or rhinoceros for its nightly repast; but when a
ship chanced to pass that way, his griffinship had no occasion to fly so
far for a supper. Attracted by the tree, the doomed vessel remained
motionless on the waters, until the wretched sailors were, one by one,
devoured by the monster. When the nuts ripened, they dropped off into
the water, and, carried by winds and currents to less dangerous
localities, were picked up by mariners, or cast on some lucky shore.
What is this but an Eastern version--who dare say it is not the
original?--of the more classical fable of the dragon and the golden fruit
of the Hesperides?
Time went on. Vasco de Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope,
and a new route was opened to Eastern commerce. The Portuguese,
who encountered the terrors of the Cape of Storms, were not likely to
be daunted by a griffin; yet, with all their endeavours, they never
succeeded in discovering the precious tree. By their exertions, however,
rather more of the drug was brought to Europe than had previously
been; still there was no reduction in its estimated value. In the East, an
Indian potentate demanded a ship and her cargo as the price of a perfect
nut, and it was actually purchased on the terms; in the West, the
Emperor Rodolph offered 4000 florins for one, and his offer was
contemptuously refused; while invalids from all parts of Europe
performed painful pilgrimages to Venice, Lisbon, or Antwerp, to enjoy
the inestimable benefit of drinking water out of pieces of nut-shell!
Who may say what adulterations and tricks were practised by dishonest
dealers, to maintain a supply of this costly medicine? but, as similar
impositions are not unknown at the present day, we may as well pass
lightly over that part of our subject.
The English and Dutch next made their way to the Indian Ocean; yet,

though they sought for the invaluable Tree of Solomon, with all the
energy supplied by a burning thirst for gain, their efforts were as
fruitless and unsuccessful as those of the Portuguese. Strange tales, too,
some of these ancient mariners related on their return to Europe: how,
in the clear waters of deep bays, they had observed groves of those
marvellous trees, growing fathoms down beneath the surface of the
placid sea. Out of a mass of equally ridiculous reports, the only facts
then attainable were at length sifted: these were, that the tree had not
been discovered growing in any locality whatever; that