68 FLORA OF THE 



Curiously enough, a similar procession shows a man 

 carrying a basket containing three 

 cone-like fruits, shown in fig. 30, which 

 may, for all we know, have been the 

 ordinary form of citrons. These can 

 J hardly have been meant for bunches 

 Laya?dv Monumems ^^ grapcs, bccause grapes are distinctly 



of Nineveh,' new ser. . 



and separately carried. 



There is certainly a very curious resemblance in one 

 of the fingers of this unknown fruit being curled in, like 

 those of fig. 2()b, and of fig. 32.^ 



There can hardly be any doubt, as I shall show, that 

 the citron was known to the Assyrians, and through 

 the Arab and Persian traders they may have also 

 become acquainted with the fingered form of it,- to 

 which, even now in China, a superstitious reverence 

 is given, and is there called Fo-sJiou-kan. It has there 

 the name of 'Buddha's hand.' Indeed, some forms of 

 the fingered citron are not unlike a hand, as shown 

 in fig. 31, owing to some of the fingers remaining 

 dwarfed. 



Gallesio, who in 181 1 wrote 'The Traite du Citrus,' 

 explored the history of all the orange and citron tribe 

 known in Europe up to that time with great patience 



' It should lie remembered that the Assyrian artist could not give all the 

 detail on stone which the Egyptian artist could give by means of paint. 



'■ There is evidence to show that the old Accadians traded with India, 

 where the citron nius have been known from remote periods. 



