omen to a very prolonged course of perfuming before
they were admitted to the king: "six months with oil of myrrh and
six months with sweet odors." (_Esther_, Chapter II, v. 12.)

In the _Arabian Nights_ there are many allusions to the use of
perfumes by women with a more or less definitely stated
aphrodisiacal intent. Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman:
"With fine incense I will perfume my breasts, my belly, my whole
body, so that my skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, O apple
of my eye!"

Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes
practiced with the object of inducing love in the partner.
Schellong states that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land rub
various fragrant plants into their bodies for this purpose.
(_Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1899, ht. i, p. 19.) The
significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Haddon
when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits among whom the
initiative in courtship is taken by the women. It was by scenting
himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man
indicated that he was ready to be sued by the girls. A man would
wear this scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order
to attract the attention of a particular girl; it was believed to
act with magical certainty, after the manner of a charm (_Reports
of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_,
vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328).

The perfume which is of all perfumes the most interesting from the present
point of view is certainly musk. With ambergris, musk is the chief member
of Linnaeus's group of _Odores ambrosiacae_, a group which in sexual
significances, as Zwaardemaker remarks, ranks besides the capryl group of
odors. It is a perfume of ancient origin; its name is Persian[59]
(indicating doubtless the channel whence it reached Europe) and ultimately
derived from the Sanskrit word for testicle in allusion to the fact that
it was contained in a pouch removed from the sexual parts of the male
musk-deer. Musk odors, however, often of considerable strength, are very
widely distributed in Nature, alike among animals and plants. This is
indicated by the frequency with which the word "musk" forms part of the
names of animals and plants which are by no means always nearly related.
We have the musk-ox, the musky mole, several species called musk-rat, the
musk-duct, the musk-b