LEGUMINOSZE. 407 
oscorides calls Indicon, and Pliny and Vitruvius Indicum, 
s a blue pigment brought from India, and used both in 
nting and dyeing. When powdered it gave a black powder, 
d when suspended in water it produced an agreeable mix- 
e of blue and purple. It belonged to the costly dye-stuffs, 
d was often adulterated by the addition of earth. On this 
ount, that which was soft without any roughness, and which 
embled an inspissated juice, was esteemed the best. Both 
ny and Dioscorides speak of two kinds, one of which 
heres to reeds, in the form of slime or scum thrown up by the 
‘sea ; the other was scraped from the sides of dye-pans in the 
orm of a purple-coloured scum, The ancients considered Indicum 
to be astringent, and used it for ulcers and inflammation, and 
0 cleanse and heal wounds. (See Beckmann’s Hist. of Invent. 
l., p. 258, where the subject is fully discussed.) The early 
bian physicians identified Indicum with Nil, which they 
egarded as a kind of Indian woad. Ibn Sina calls it El-was-— 
nah-el-Hindiya, and it was also called Idlim, which was an 
Arabian name for woad, as appears from a passage in Abu 
lanifeh, who says :—‘“ An Arab of the desert, of the Sarah 
, told me that the Idlimeh is a plant that rises upon a 
about a cubit in height, and has branches at the 
iremities of which are .what resemble the blossoms. of the 
ender, and it (the plant) is dust-coloured.” In Ibn 
a’s time woad appears to have been superseded by indigo, — 
e describes wasmeh as wark-un-nil, “or leaves of the 
.? In the 13th century, Marco Polo relates that he saw 
digo, which the dyers used, made in the kingdom of Coulan 
Coilum ; and he describes the process for preparing it. Persian — 
rs on Indian drugs state that before the time when the 
lish began to cultivate indigo, the best kind made in 
ia was known as Baiana, from the name of a place in. the 
ahjehanabad district where it was made, and the record of 
e cargoes of the ships which arrived in Holland from the— 
Indies in 1631, show that the first had 13,539 Ibs. of 
8 indigo ; the second 82,734 Ibs. of Guzerat indigo ; the ae 
1 66,996 lbs. of the same ; the fourth 50, 708 Ihe. i. pane . 
