ADDENDUM TO CHAPTER IV. 



Paunda Canes. In the body of Chapter IV the term " Paunda " is 

 used as applying in India to thick tropical canes exotic with regard to that 

 country. This is the sense in which " Paunda " is used in many official 

 Indian publications, but further treatment is necessary, and particularly 

 with regard to one particular cane to which the term " Paunda " or 

 " Pundya " is specifically applied. 



The earliest reference to this name and type of cane is in Ibu-i-Batuta's 

 " Safar-Namal," a work written in the I3th century. In this he eulogizes 

 the Paunda cane of the Malabar coast, " the like of which is not found 

 anywhere in India." A second' Oriental writer, Sabhan Rai, ih his work, 

 " Khulasater-'t-Tawarikh," of date 1695, also mentions Paunda canes as 

 growing in Oudh and near Lucknow, and this reference evidently refers 

 to thick canes, of which he mentions two, a white and a black. 



In the Deccan of India, a locality adjacent to the Malabar Coast, there 

 is now extensively grown a cane called Pundya ( Paunda), which has been 

 specifically associated with the district for a very long time, and, as there 

 employed, the term does not seem to be used as equivalent to exotic ; this cane 

 may reasonably be connected with that cane referred to by Ibu-i-Batuta 

 and later by Sabhan Rai. 



This cane (or possibly a group of closely allied canes), which the writer 

 cannot call to mind ever having seen in any other part of the world, may be 

 described as of the best South Pacific type, green when young, yellow when 

 ripe, of erect habit, with joints 1-5 to 2 inches in diameter, and of length 

 of joint up to a maximum of 4-5 inches. The joints are cylindrical to dis- 

 tinctly barrel -shaped, and have a tendency to split. The wax covering is 

 fairly thick. The eyes are large, in longitudinal section, best described as 

 a triangle standing on a semicircle, and in older joints they have a tendency 

 to grow away from the stalk. The most distinct characteristic is the 

 presence on many joints of longitudinal brown streaks, as if inscribed with 

 a fine pen. The fibre content is 10-11 per cent., the juice is very pure and 

 sweet, and the cane tillers well. It is known to afford a red and yellow 

 sport. The presumed presence of this cane in India at so early a time as 

 the i3th century is hard to explain in view of the tendency to regard canes 

 of this type as exotic to India. It may have been brought by some early 

 Hindu or Malay mariner. 



In many early references to the Otaheite and /or Bourbon cane there 

 appears the statement that this cane is supposed to have come originally 

 from the Malabar Coast. While the .Pundya cane of the Deccan is most 

 certainly distinct from the Otaheite cane, it yet bears enough general 

 resemblance thereto to account for the rise of this supposition, and the 



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