of Western Afghanistan and North-Eastern Persia. 167 



here an immense trade done in dried plums or prunes, called 

 dlii-bokhdra, exported to Southern Persia, Afghanistan, and 

 India, some even to Turkistan by the way of Maimana. 

 These are used in the ordinary diet of the better classes, 

 usually mixed amongst the flesh of dried apricots. 



Prunus eburnea, Aitck. et Hemsley. Eosace-3e. 

 See Prunus brahuicus, dol, dul, dwal. 



Prunus persica, Benth. et Hook.fil. JIosace^. 



The Peach, slwft-dlu, to, tor ; Teheran, hulu. The Xec- 

 tarine, as far as I can remember or noted, came under the 

 same names, but a nectarine with a sweet kernel was 

 called shaftarang, and the kernels Jcashta-sMrln, this I have 

 no doubt was the same fruit as in Ladakh is called raliha- 

 harpo {Trade Products of Leh, p. 61). A small tree, culti- 

 vated extensively at Herat and Meshad for its fruit, not in 

 any quantity in the gardens of the other towns through which 

 I passed ; of course, of Herat I can only speak from hearsay. 

 The liner varieties of the fi'uit are raised from grafts, and 

 these were very fine at Meshad ; to this is given the name 

 shaft-dlu, meaning the beautiful plum. There is a very 

 ordinary fruit, in external appearance resembling in form 

 and colouring the fruit of Pkuxus A:mygdalus, the almond, 

 only almost as large as the ordinary peach ; this originates 

 from self-sown seeds, and is not grafted ; it is called to, or tor, 

 which means a sweetheart, beloved. In Teheran, the fine 

 Peach is called hidu, which is an Arabic word meaning sweet, 

 pleasant to the taste or eye. The name dru is a Hindustani 

 corruption for dlu. I never heard it, nor did any one know 

 of it in these districts as a name for the peach. 



The fruit of the peach, when ripe, cannot be conveyed, so 

 that it is not an export article ; the unripe fruit — both peaches 

 and nectarines — are dried for exportation, but even this is 

 said not to carry well. De CandoUe {Origin of Cultivated 

 Plants, p. 223, Eng. trans., 1884), in speaking of the 

 indigenous peach says : " Pallas saw several on the banks 

 of the Terek, where the inhabitants give it a name which 

 he calls Persian scheptata." This name is no doubt shafta- 

 ta, the beautifid luscious one {shafta, beautiful ; ta or tar, 

 green, moist, luscious). And again, at page 223, he gives 

 tao as a Cliinese name, which may be from the Persian ta. 



