GALANGAL 



371 



The celebrated geographer Edrisi, who wrote A.D. 1154, ob- 

 serves of Aden, that it is the port for Scinde, India, and China, 

 from which last country are brought musk, aloes-wood, pepper, 

 cardamoms, cinnamon, galangal, mace, myrobalans, camphor, 

 nutmegs, cloves and cubebs. 1 



The Arabian physicians from Rhazes and Alkindi, in the tenth 

 and eleventh centuries downwards, make frequent reference to 

 galangal as an ingredient of the complicated medicines then in use. 



Among the later Greeks I cannot find any mention made of 

 this drug prior to Myrepsus, who probably resided as a physician 

 at the court of the Greek Emperors at Mcaea in the thirteenth 

 century ; though several authors declare it is referred to much 

 earlier. It is constantly named by Actuarius, who may have 

 been contemporary with Myrepsus. 



In a work published some years ago in Paris, entitled Assises 

 de Jerusalem ; ou, Recueil des Ouvrages de Jurisprudence composes 

 pendant le xiii e Siecle dans les Royaumes de Jerusalem et de 

 Chypre? there is a remarkable list of commodities liable to duty 

 during the twelfth century at the port of Aeon in Syria (the 

 modern Akka), at that period a great emporium of Mediter- 

 ranean trade, in which many Indian spices and drugs, including 

 galangal, are enumerated. 



We find galangal also noticed, together with ginger and zedo- 

 ary, as productions of India imported into Palestine, by Jaques 

 de Vitii, Bishop of Aeon in the early part of the thirteenth 

 century ; 3 and in the Romance of Godefroi de Bouillon, a poem 

 written in the twelfth century, it is named as one of the rarities 

 of the East, which the Crusaders were deluded into believing 

 would be found in plenty in the Holy Land. 4 



Marco Polo, in his travels in Asia in the thirteenth century, 

 observed galangal to be produced in Southern China (Province 

 of Foochow ?), as well as in Java. 5 



1 Geographic d? Edrisi, traduit par A. Jaubert ; Paris, 1836-40, 4to, 

 toinei. p. 51. 2 Paris, 1841-43, fol. tome ii. chap. 142. 



3 Vitriaco (Jac. de), Historia Orientalis et Occidentalis, 1597, 8vo, 

 p. 172. 



4 Bibliotheque de VEcole des Charles, tome ii. 1840-41, p. 437. 



6 Lc Livrede Marco polo (ed. Pauthier : Paris, 1866), pp. 522, 561. 



B B 2 



1871 



Myrepsus 



and 

 Actuarius. 



Galangal men- 

 tioned in the 

 13th century. 



Romance of 

 Godefroi de 

 Bouillon. 



Marco Polo. 



