made indubitably a more luxurious meal than they ever had before. We took a route in which no European had been; and Mr. Grant, to reconcile them to so novel a sight, as well as to conciliate their attachment, carried up a variety of presents of clothes, beads, and looking-glasses, which he distributed with money to every family in all the villages we passed, and thus left them the most acceptable memorials of their visitors.

Bhaugulpore, June 27, 1792.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS

ON THE

SPIKENARD OF THE ANCIENTS.

BY THE PRESIDENT.

NEARLY at the time when the result of my first

inquiries concerning spikenard was published in the second volume of our Asiatic Researches, there appeared in the Philosophical Transactions an account of the Andropogon Jwaráncusa, the specimen of which Dr. Blane had received from Lucknow, and which he supposes to be the true Indick nard of Dioscorides and Galen. Having more than once read his arguments with pleasure, but not with conviction, I feel it incumbent on me to state my reasons for dissenting from the learned physician with all the freedom of a searcher for truth, but without any diminution of that respect to which his knowledge and can> dor justly entitle him.

In the first place, there is a passage in Dr. Blane's paper, which I could not but read with surprise; not because it is erroneous or disputable (for nothing can be more certain) but because it is decisive against the very proposition which the writer VOL. IV. H

endeavours to support.

66

Dioscorides mentions the Syriack nard," says the Doctor, "as a species dif"ferent from the Indian, which was certainly brought "from some of the remote parts of India; for both he "and Galen, by way of fixing more precisely the country whence it came, call it also Gangites." We may add, that Ptolemy, who, though not a professed naturalist, had opportunities in Egypt of conversing with Indian merchants on every thing remarkable in this country, distinguishes Rangantati as producing the true spikenard; and it is from the borders of that very district, if we believe modern Indians, that the people of Butan bring it yearly into Bengal. Now, it is not contended that the new species of Andropogon (if it be a new species) may be the Indick nard of Dioscorides †, because it was found by Mr. Blane in a remote part of India (for that solitary fact would have proved nothing); but it is learnedly and elaborately urged, that it must be the true Indian spikenard, because it differs only in the length of the stalks from the nard of Garcias; which, according to him, is the only species of nardus exported from India, and which resembles a dried specimen seen by Rumphius, and brought, he says, among other countries, from Macrán, or the ancient Gadrosia; the very country where, according to Arrian, the true nard grew in abundance: for "the Phenicians," he says, "collected "a plentiful store of it; and so much of it was trampled under foot by the army, that a strong perfume was diffused on all sides of them." Now

* Ptolémée distingue le canton de Rhandamarcotta, en ce qu'il fournit la plante, que nous appellons Spicnard ce qui peut convenir à Rangamati; et des differentes espéces, l'Indique est bien la plus D'Anv. Antiq. Geogr. Ind. 81.

estimée.

+ Dr. Roxburgh, with great reason, supposes it to be the Múricated Andropogon of Koenig, who mentions the roots as odoriferous when sprinkled with water. See Retz. iii. Fascic. 43 and v. 21.

there is a singular coincidence of circumstances; for our Andropogon was discovered by the scent of its roots, when they were crushed by the horses and elephants in a hunting party of the Vazir Asufuddaulah; so that, on the whole, it must be the same with the plant mentioned by Arrian: but it may be argued, I think, more conclusively, that a plant, growing with great luxuriance in Gadrosia, or Macran, which the Doctor admits to be a maritime province of Persia, could not possibly be the same with a plant confined to remote parts of India; so that, if Garcias, Rumphius, and Arrian be supposed to have meant the same species of nard, it was evidently different from that of Dioscorides and Galen. The respectable writer, with whose opinions I make so free, but from no other motive than a love of truth, seems aware of a little geographical difficulty from the western position of Macran; for he first makes it extend to the river Indus, and then infers, from the long march westward and the distress of Alexander's army, subsequent to the discovery of the spikenard, that it must have grown in the more eastern part of the desert, and consequently on the very borders of India; but, even if we allow Gadrosia, or Gadrosis, to have been the same track of land with Macrán (though the limits of all the provinces in Persia have been considerably changed) yet the frontier of India could never with any propriety be carried so far to the west; for not only the Orite and Arabitæ, but, according to Mela, the whole province of Ariana were between Gadrosis and the In, dus; and, though Macrán (for so the word should be written) may have been annexed to India by such whimsical geographers as the Turks, who give the name of White Indians to the Persians of Arachosia, and of Yellow Indians to the Arabs of Yemen, yet the river Indus, with the countries of Sind and Multan on both sides of it, has ever been considered by the Persians and Arabs as the western limits of Hind or India;

and Arrian himself expressly names the Indus as its known boundary. Let Gadrosis, however, be Macrán, and let Macrán be an Indian province, yet it never could have been a remote part of India in respect of Europe or Egypt, and, consequently, was not meant by Galen or Dioscorides, when they described the true spikenard. It must be admitted, that, if the Siree of Rumphius, which differs little from the nardus of Garcias, which corresponds for the most part with the new Andropogon, was ever brought from the province of Macrán, they were all three probably the same plant with the nard of Arrian: but, unfortunately, Rumphius thought of no country less than of Persia, and of no province less than of Macrán; for he writes very distinctly, both in his Latin and his Dutch columns, that the plant in question grows in Mackián, which he well knew to be one of the Moluccas*. I am far from intending to give pain, by detecting this trifling mistake; and, as I may have made many of greater consequence, I shall be truly obliged to any man who will set me right with good manners, the sacred laws of which ought never to be violated in a literary debate, except when some petulant aggressor has forfeited all claim to respect.

Arrian himself can by no means be understood to assert that the Indian spikenard grew in Persia; for his words are a fragrant root of nardt, where the omission of the definite articles implies rather a nard, than the nard, or the most celebrated species of it; and it seems very clear, that the Greeks used that foreign word generically for odoriferous plants of dif

Hi flores sæpe, immo vulgo fere, observantur in vetustis Sirec stipitibus, qui in Ternata, Motira, et Mackian crescunt. Vol. 5. Lib. 8. Cap. 24. p. 182.

† Νάρδα ρίζαν εθισμόν.