_ 133 _ I saw in the river alongside the city about four hundred boats like small brigantines, which were being made ready to convey men and munitions to Basra. They were strongly constructed of good pine wood which comes from a range of mountains called Bustan, which is a seven-day journey to the north-west of there and brought by camels; and of poplar-wood, poplars being very numerous in the neighborhood of the river. If the river were capable of carrying them, they could build galleys of this timber, but the river is so shallow in many places that even these barges have to be pushed by the people travelling in them, and they have to unload them. A day’s journey beyond the Bustan mountains there is another range called [lguglee],”topmast”, because it is very high and narrow. This is where the roads to Constantinople and Caramania join, four-or five-days’ journey from Aleppo. In Caramania, the storax tree grows: a small tree with leaves like the apple tree, but without fruit. In their trunks, near the ground, there are small white creatures which gnaw holes in them, from which storax-resin exudes. This is beaten with mallets in the sun so that it is smaller in volume, and narrow sacks of cotton and canvas half a braça long are filled with it; each one weighs three of our alqueires, and is sold by weight. A great quantity of
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