Junghuhn’s account (Google Books ⧉, Amazon ⧉, Bookshop ⧉)

The Travels of Marco Polo

Compare this passage, which we may notice has been borrowed bodily by Sindbad of the Sea, with what is probably the best modern account, Junghuhn’s: “Among the forest trees (of Tapanuli adjoining Barus) the Camphor Tree (Dryabalanops Camphora) attracts beyond all the traveller’s observation, by its straight columnar and colossal grey trunk, and its mighty crown of foliage, rising high above the canopy of the forest. It exceeds in dimensions the Rasamala, the loftiest tree of Java, and is probably the greatest tree of the Archipelago, if not of the world, reaching a height of 200 feet. One of the middling size which I had cut down measured at the base... The camphor oil is prepared by the natives by bruising and boiling the twigs.”