niac (dolichos pruriens) grows in Bengal, where it is called cadjuct. Gum-lac is said to be a production of the mimosa cinerea; and the bdellium (bdolach, ßdoλxov, ẞdλλ) of the ancients is believed to have been an odoriferous resin, or transparent gum obtained from some species of mimosa.* The heracleum gummiferum is a native of India. Little has hitherto been done towards classifying the endless varieties of myrrh or resin-bearing trees, among which rank several varieties of the Indian fig, and shrubs of both the acacia and jujube species. The coccus lacca, or gum-lac insect, is said to be found on four or five different trees. Gamboge also is a vegetable resin produced by an Indian tree (gutta); and a red gum is obtained from the guilandina maringa.

The sweitenia febrifuga, which supplies an astringent and tonic bark, used by the natives in intermittent fevers, grows among the mountains of the Rajahmundry Circar. Zedoary (curcuma,) the root of which is medicinal, grows in sandy open places in Malabar, where it is called acua by the Brahmins. The ginger-plant (ali) grows in most parts of the Malabar coast where the sea cannot penetrate. The

* The bdolach of Gen. ii. 12, was certainly some white precious stone; (Bochart and Geddes suppose it the pearl, which is not likely ;) and the colour of bdellium (Numb. xi. 7) was like hoarfrost, Exod. xiii. 14, 31. By the Rabbies, it is rendered crystal. It was, perhaps, diamond, which the hoar-frost in the sun would most resemble. The 6d2λ of the Periplus is described by Salmasius as a pellucid exudation of a waxy substance, and there are said to be three sorts, Arabic, Petræan, and Bactrian. It was imported, according to the Periplus, from Baroach in Guzerat, and from Sinde.-VINCENT'S Periplus. App. p. 6. This was, perhaps, the true amomum, mom signifying wax. If not the oshauk or gumammoniac plant, it was probably of a similar kind. See the description of the oshauk in Mod. Trav. Persia, vol. ii. p. 143; and of the Chinese wax-trees, ib. p. 308.

tamarindus Indica produces tamarinds of a darker colour and drier than those of the West Indies, with pods twice as long. The elettoria cardamomum, or cardamon-plant, grows on the declivities of the Ghauts above Cochin and Calicut. The laurus cassia bears what is called Malabar cinnamon, which, in some respects, but in an inferior degree, answers the officinal and domestic purposes of the real cinnamon, the produce of Ceylon.* The laurus camphora, or camphor-cinnamon, (called, in Ceylon, capuru curundu,) from the root of which camphor is obtained, appears to be a variety of the laurus cinnamomum (penni curundu, honey cinnamon).+ These are no longer found on the Indian continent, if they were ever indigenous there. The piper longum is a native both of Bengal and Malabar, and the piper nigrum has recently been found to flourish in the Northern Circars.

The

* In the Periplus, ten different sorts of xaoría are mentioned; and it is remarked by the learned Editor as a curious coincidence, that Professor Thunberg reckons ten sorts of cinnamon in Ceylon, four of nearly equal value. He considers it as certain, that the cassia of the Periplus was what we now call cinnamon. In Exod. xxx. 23, 4, the khinemon besem (sweet-scented pipe), is distinguished from khiddah, rendered cassia by our translators, which was apparently a bark. The former seems to correspond to the casia syrinx and casia fistula of the Greeks and Latins, as the latter is supposed to be their xylo-casia and casia lignea. The Roman cinnamon, Dr. Vincent thinks, was the tender shoot of the same plant. See Periplus, vol. i. pp. 12-22, of App. The subject is involved in some perplexity. Galen states, that casia and cinnamon are so much alike that it is not easy to distinguish them. This would seem to hold good of the laurus casia and laurus cinnamomum, but could not be true of the substances above referred to. Could the khinna-mon or zváμμo be camphor,-the mom or wax of the laurus camphora?

+ Knox's Ceylon, p. 16. In the term capuru, we seem to have the Heb. copher and the Greek xurgos, which some writers have supposed to be the henna (lawsonia inermis). The Sanscrit for cinnamon is said to be savernaca or ourana.

Arabians call the Malabar coast, belled-el-folfol, the pepper-country. The papaver orientale, from which opium is obtained, thrives in almost all the provinces ; but the best comes from Bengal and Bahar. The Indian sesamum furnishes an oil known to antiquity as an article of commerce. Indigo grows spontaneously in Gujerat, and is cultivated on a large scale in Bengal, Bahar, Oude, and Agra. A species of nerium, yielding a valuable blue dye, has been discovered in the Circars. This country has been celebrated for its cotton from the remotest times. The sugar-cane is cultivated also to a great extent, as it has been from time immemorial, throughout India.* Jalap, sarsa

* Sugar has been cultivated in India, from time immemorial. The name of Gaur, the ancient capital of Bengal, a city highly celebrated in Indian history, is supposed to be derived from gur, which, in both the ancient and the modern languages, signifies raw sugar. That the cane was an article of commerce in very early times, appears from the references to this production by the Jewish prophets. (See Isa. xliii. 24; Jer. vi. 20.) In the Periplus, sugar is described as Μελι καλάμινον τὸ λεγόμενον σακχαρι, honey from canes, called sacchari. Pliny says: "Arabia produces saccaron, but the best is in India: it is a honey collected from reeds, a sort of white gum, brittle between the teeth; the largest pieces do not exceed the size of a hazel-nut, and it is used only in medicine."-Lib. xii. c. 8. Sarcara or saccara, we are told, is the Sanscrit term for manufactured sugar. Dr. Vincent, on the authority of a paper in the Asiatic Researches, gives, as the Sanscrit word, ichshu-casa, and supposes that from the two middle syllables the Arabic shuka or shuker was formed. It is agreed, that sugar and sucre come from the Arabic; the Saracens and Arabians having propagated the cane in their conquests. From Egypt, it was carried into Sicily, which, in the twelfth century, supplied many parts of Europe with that commodity; and from Sicily, it appears to have travelled westward, to Spain, the Canaries, Hispaniola, and Brazil. The noun W shekar, occurs nineteen times in the Hebrew Scriptures, and is uniformly translated strong drink, in distinction from wine. Some sort of mead or fermented liquor may be intended; but it is very possible that a saccharine spirit was obtained from the syrup of the cane, (still exported under the

parilla, ginger, saffron, anise, various dyes, tobacco, flax, hemp, and many other plants well known to commerce, are the production of the Indian soil.

India produces those species of grain which are most common to Europe,-wheat, barley, maize, and millet; but rice is the chief food of the frugal natives, and grows in most of the provinces. There are reckoned no fewer than twenty-seven varieties.* The holcus spicatus, called badehera, is a common food, especially among the Mahrattas. Several other species of holcus are cultivated; in particular, holcus dhourra (andropogon sorghum or holcus sorgheum), called by the natives tchor. Instead of our potato, the Indians have the katchil root, the igname (dioscorea alata), and the moogphully (arachis hypogæa). Besides our leguminous species, they have the moong (phaseolus mungo); the murhus (cynosurus coracanus), the grain of which resembles mustard-seed, and is used for cakes; the tanna, a very productive grain; the tour (cytisus cajan); and the toll, a shrub yielding a

name of jaghery,) to which that name was given, and that the verb shakar was made from the noun. The Greek σixsga and Latin sicera, have obviously a similar etymology; and possibly, σunov, a fig, may, in like manner, be derived from its saccharine quality. * The ground under the wet cultivation, called nungah land, brings forth crops almost all the year round; and even on the pungah land, or that which is not under wet cultivation, there are two harvests,-kheerisf in September and October, and rubbeef in March and April. Wheat is not much cultivated south of Allahabad, nor is there much demand for it. The finest is obtained from Gujerat. The crop of raggy in Mysore and the southern provinces, is the most important of any raised in the dry field, and supplies the lower classes with their common food. Maize is little grown, except in the western provinces. Flax is cultivated only for its oil, and the common hemp for the sake of the intoxicating spirit obtained from it, called bang. For further details relating to the agriculture of India, we may refer our readers to Brewster's Ency. vol. xii. pp. 76-89.

favourite kind of pea. The red lotus, the most beautiful of the nymphæas, is common on the banks of the southern rivers, and its roots are used for food in different ways. The small-fruited banana (musa sapientum) has, in all ages, been the food of the philosophers of India and priests of Brahma. Among the Eastern Ghauts, the great American aloe (agave Americana) grows in great profusion. The bread-tree (melia azadirachta) and the robenia mitis, grow spontaneously in the barren sands of the Carnatic: the latter is found also in the rich muddy soil on the banks of the Ganges.

The fruits of Europe, the apple, the pear, the plum, the apricot, the peach, the walnut, the almond, the orange, and the mulberry thrive in the northern provinces. The mango, of all Indian fruits deemed the most delicious, grows both wild and cultivated in almost every part, but thrives best in the southern districts. Battalah, in the Punjaub, is celebrated for a plum of excellent flavour, called the aloocha. In the Sylhet district of Bengal, orange-plantations occupy a considerable tract, and this fruit forms the chief export of that part. Grapes of an extraordinary size are produced in the neighbourhood of Chikery, in the territories of the Peishwa; they are grown also in some parts of Aurungabad and Malwah, and have recently been introduced into the territory of Bombay. The jumboo, a species of rose-apple, is esteemed not only for its fruit, but also for its crimson flowers, which hang down very elegantly from every part of the stem. Two species of the papan-fig

* See Mod. Trav. Egypt, vol. i. p. 24. Persia, vol. ii. pp. 41, 306.

†The largest and best apples grow in the Punjaub, near Battalah. In Lahore, the white mulberry attains a remarkably large size and fine flavour.