Sesame and Flax 293 



admits that it is unknown what the hu ma spoken of in the Pen-ts % ao 

 literature really is. 



I have also prepared a translation of Li §i-cen's text on the subject, 

 which Bretschneider refrained from translating; but, as there are several 

 difficult .botanical points which I am unable to elucidate, I prefer to 

 leave this subject to a competent botanist. In substance Li Si-cen 

 understands by hu ma the sesame, as follows from his use of the modern 

 term U ma la M. He says that there are two crops, an early and a late 

 one, 1 with black, white, or red seeds; but how he can state that the 

 stems are all square is unintelligible. The criticism of the statements 

 of his predecessors occupies much space, but I do not see that it enlight- 

 ens us much. The best way out of this difficulty seems to me Stuart's 

 suggestion that the Chinese account confounds Sesamum, Linum, 

 and Mulgedium. The Japanese naturalist Ono Ranzan 2 is of the same 

 opinion. He says that there is no variety of sesame with red seed, as 

 asserted by Li Si-cen (save that the black seeds of sesame are reddish 

 in the immature stage), and infers that this is a species of Linum which 

 always produces red seeds exclusively. Ono also states that there is a 

 close correlation between the color of the seeds and the angles of the 

 capsules: a white variety will always produce two or four-angled cap- 

 sules, while hexangular and octangular capsules invariably contain only 

 black seeds. Whether or in how far this is correct I do not know. The 

 confusion of Sesamum and Linum arose from the common name hu ma, 

 but unfortunately proves that the Chinese botanists, or rather pharma- 

 cists, were bookworms to a much higher degree than observers; for it 

 is almost beyond comprehension how such radically distinct plants 

 can be confounded by any one who has even once seen them. In view 

 of this disconsolate situation, the historian can only beg to be excused. 



7. It is a point of great culture-historical interest that the Chinese 

 have never utilized the ,flax-fibre in the manufacture of textiles, but j 

 that hemp has always occupied this place from the time of their j 

 earliest antiquity. 8 This is one of the points of fundamental diversity 

 between East-Asiatic and Mediterranean civilizations, — there hemp, 

 and here flax, as material for clothing. There are, further, two important \ 

 facts to be considered in this connection, — first, that the Aryans 



1 In S. Couling's Encyclopaedia Sinica (p. 504) it is stated that in China there is 

 only one crop, but late and early varieties exist. 



2 Honzo komoku keitno, Ch. 18, p. 2. 



8 In a subsequent study on the plants and agriculture of the Indo-Chinese, I 

 hope to demonstrate that the Indo-Chinese nations, especially the Chinese and 

 Tibetans, possess a common designation for "hemp," and that hemp has been 

 cultivated by them in a prehistoric age. There also the history of hemp will be 

 discussed. 



