292 NOTES. 



marchants conveyed through the world. Campion' is the 

 mother citie of the countrey, inhabited by Idolaters, with 

 some of the Arabian and Christian nations. . . 



' Succuir also is, according to his report,^ 'great and 

 faire, beautified with many temples. Their Rheubarbe they 

 would not bestow the paines to gather, but for the mar- 

 chants, Avhich from China, Persia, and other places, fetch it 

 from them at a cheap price. Nor doe they in Tanguth 

 use it for Phisick, as wee heere, but wdth other ingredients 

 make perfumes thereof for their Idols ; and in some places 

 they burn it instead of other firing, and give it their horses 

 to eat. They set more price by an hearbe which they call 

 Diemhroni cini, medicinable for the eyes,^ and another called 

 Chiai Catai, growing in Catay, at Cacianfu,'* admirable 

 against very many diseases, an ounce whereof they esteem 

 as good as a sack of Rheubarbe ; whose description you 

 may see at large, according to the relation and picture of 

 the said Chaggi in Raimisius ; for (to add that also) they 

 have many painters, and one countrey inhabited onely by 

 them. These Tanguthians are bearded as men in these 

 parts, especially some time of the yeere.' 



RHEUM PAL^IATUM L. THE GENUINE RHUBARB. 



Although the accounts of the true Chinese Rhubarb, 

 collected from various travellers and writers, agree wonder- 

 fully with one another as to its native land, station, 

 gathering, preparation, and principal place of trade ; all 

 pointing unanimously to Kan-su, the country of the Tan- 

 gutans, and north-westernmost province of China Proper ; 

 still the only Europeans who had hitherto seen the genuine 



' i.e. Kan-chau. 



Kan-su itself is a name compounded of the two cities of А'<г«-сЬаи 

 and Suh-ckizxi (Yule's ' Marco Polo,' 2d. ed. i. 222.) 



" i.e. Hajji IVIahomed's, the Persian traveller in Ramusio's 

 ' Navigationi.' 



^ An account of this drug mamira was given by the late Daniel 

 Hanbury in the ' Pharmaceutical Journal,' some six or seven years ago. 



* Probably Kenjanfu, i.e. Singanfu, the capital of Shen-si, though 

 tea does not i^row there. 



