150 SPIKENARD. 



Nepal, Morang, and Butan,* near which Ptolemy fixes its native 

 soil. The commercial agents of the Deva Rajah call it also 

 pampi; and, by their account, the dried specimens, which look 

 like the tails of ermines, rise from the ground, resembling ears 

 of green wheat both in form and color, a fact which perfectly 

 accounts for the names stachys, spica, sumbul, and khushah, 

 which the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Persians have given to 

 the drug, though it is not properly a spike, and not merely a 

 root, but the whole plant, which the natives gather for the 

 sale before the radical leaves, of which the fibres only remain 

 after a few months, have unfolded themselves from the base 

 of the stem.&quot; 



Great quantities were, in Sir William s time, exported from 

 Butan, (or Bhotan,) where the mode of cultivation was a secret 

 kept with scrupulous care. The Indian spikenard was so 

 scarce that in the time of Hasselquist the Venetian merchants 

 brought sixty tons of Celtic spikenard to Cairo and sold it to 

 the Abyssinians and Nubians at the high price of one hundred 

 rix-dollars per ton ;) and even at this price it was much cheaper 

 than the Indian, which was superior in quality. 



After considerable research and criticism, and although the 

 assertion has been lately made that Sir William did not receive 

 the proper root, scholars are generally agreed that this jata- 

 mansi is the spikenard of the ancients. The root is rare, and 

 probably was always difficult to procure ; and, while at present 

 some varieties are not very likely to convey the idea of per- 



* These provinces are on the northeast borders of Hindostan. 

 f About $100 American money. 



