IO 



CHAPTER II. 



THE "KHATTA" OR "KARNA" ORANGES. 



THE Emperor Baber, in his memoirs, just mentions 

 the kirnek, and all he says, is that it is " tart, and 

 may be about the size of & gulgul lime." * 



It is impossible from this mention to make out 

 whether Baber's Kirneh, is the same as the Khatta or 

 karna of moderns. In Mangalore, what they call 

 karna is a Seville orange, and I have been told, that 

 in Mysore the karna is the same as the Mangalore 

 one. The khatta or karna of Upper India is totally 

 different from the Seville orange. It is not improbable 

 that Baber's kirneh is the orange in question. If so, 

 he makes no mention of the Seville orange, and the 

 latter appears to be the oldest known in Western 

 India, as it is stated it was from there that the Arabs 

 introduced it into Syria, and the Mediterranean. This 

 however may not be accurate, as the Arabs traded also 

 with the Malay archipelago, and with China, whence 

 the Arabs may have got it. The translators of Baber's 

 memoirs under the heading of ndranj, say "or 

 Seville orange." This, however, is only the translators' 

 notion, for surely Baber could not have said of the 

 Seville orange, that in Lemghanat, Bajour, and Siwad, 

 " it was both plentiful and good," considering that its 

 popular name is the " bitter orange," and its pulp is 

 very sour. Then Baber also states that " the size of 



* Vide Appendix, No. i (/'). 



