70 Brigade-Surgeon J. E. T. Aitchison's Notes on Products 



his knife, remove the head, cut the stem from its base, strip 

 off the few sheathing stipules tliat are still adherent to the 

 stem, and in his hand you see what looks like a very large 

 cucumber : from this he will remove the dark -green cuticle, 

 and then slice away at the deliciously cool, soft, crisp, 

 copiously milky stem, and eat slice after slice with the 

 greatest gusto, and then say, ' Did I not tell you it was the 

 edible henia and not Asafoetida ? ' ' Yes,' says an onlooker, 

 ' You will stink like a camel for the next three months ! ' 

 The method of collecting the drug, as far as I could learn, 

 was as follows : — A few men, employed for the purpose by 

 some capitalist at Herat, are sent to these Asafa3tida-bearing 

 plains during June. These take with them provisions con- 

 sisting of flour, and several donkey-loads of water-melons, 

 the latter in lieu of water, which is not only scarce there, 

 but usually saline. The men begin their work by laying 

 bare the root-stock to a depth of a couple of inches of those 

 plants only which have not as yet reached their flower-bear- 

 ing stage. They then cut off a slice from the top of the root- 

 stock, from which at once a quantity of milky juice exudes, 

 which my informant told me was not collected then. They 

 next proceeded to cover over the root by means of a domed 

 structure, of from six to eight inches in height, called a 

 khora, formed of twigs and covered with clay, leaving an 

 opening towards the north, thus protecting the exposed root 

 from the rays of the sun. The drug collectors return in 

 about five or six weeks' time, and it was at this stage that 

 the process of collecting came under my personal observa- 

 tion, A thick gummy, not milky, reddish substance now 

 appeared in more or less irregular lumps upon the exposed 

 surface of the root, which looked to me exactly like the 

 ordinary Asafoetida of commerce, as employed in medicine. 

 This was scraped off with a piece of iron hoop, or removed 

 along with a slice of the root, and at once placed in a 

 leather bag, the tanned skin of a kid or goat. My guide in- 

 formed me that occasionally the plant was operated upon in 

 this manner more than once in the season. The Asafoetida 

 was then conveyed to Herat, where it usually underwent the 

 process of adulteration with a red clay, tmva, and where it 

 was sold to certain export traders, called Kukri-log, who con- 

 vey it to India. On August 17, when I crossed the great 



