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



Persians and Afghans — at the localities where they are 

 collected owing to their cheapness there, once these begin to 

 be exported their value rises, and they come either under the 

 head of condiments or medicines ; again. Orchis tubers are 

 treated as medicines by the natives of Afghanistan and 

 Persia, for even in those localities they are difficult to obtain, 

 high priced, and not within the reach of the natives as a 

 food. Exported say to India, Salep is looked upon as a 

 superior class of food for babies and the sickly, and there- 

 fore may be classified as a highly nutritious food or as a 

 medicine. The rhizomes of Polygonatum verticillatum 

 are employed as a strength-giving food in the Kuram Valley, 

 where it was obtainable in quantity, but is in the trade 

 treated rather as a medicine. Sarcocolla is considered a 

 food by the wealthier classes of Persia ; in India, and out of 

 Persia, it is treated in the light of a drug. 



Produced locally — Mannas, Orchis tubers, Polygon- 

 atum rhizomes, Sarcocolla ; and all these are exported 

 either as medicines or condiments. 



Forests — daraklit-i-stdn. 



True forests of Populus euphratica, with several species 

 of Tamarix, exist on the islands and banks of the Helmand 

 and Hari-rud rivers. On the Hari-rud, at its most northern 

 I)oint, where I travelled, near Kumani, Haloxylon formed a 

 great part of the forest ; a country covered with a forest of 

 Haloxylon is called Tagh-i-stan by the Persians. On the 

 great sand-dunes of Baluchistan this Haloxylon formed 

 rather a copse than a forest. On the Helmand Tamarix 

 ARTICULATA occurrcd, forming thin forests of very large 

 bulky trees, in certain special localities. Pistacia vera 

 exists in large forests in the Badghis, at an altitude of from 

 2000 to nearly 4000 feet above the sea-level ; where these 

 forests occurred the districts were called loistalik, in the 

 same way as places noted for the profusion of the Eliieagnus 

 in Eastern Afghanistan are cdiWe^ jigdalik or Jagdalak ; one of 

 the celebrated passes into Afghanistan is so named, although 

 even in Griffith's time there was no sign of the tree 

 then there. Juniperus excelsa was in abundance as very 

 large, though not lofty, trees along the ridges of the hills 

 above 3000 feet altitude both in the Badghis and Khorasan. 



