CHAPTER VIII. 



THE CITRON GROUP. 



THE Emperor Baber in his memoirs, under the head- 

 ing of " taranj," says that " the inhabitants of Bajour 

 and Siwad call it ' baleng.' On this account marma- 

 lades of citron peel are called ' baleng-marmalades.' 

 The Hindostanis call the 'taranj/ the * bajouri.' It 

 is of two species : one is insipid and sweet, but of a 

 sickly sweet, and is of no value for eating, but its peel 

 is used for marmalade. The citrons of Lemghanat are 

 all of this sickly sweet. The other kind is the citron 

 of Hindostan and Bajour, which is acid, and its sherbet 

 is very pleasant and tasteful. ... Its skin is rough, 

 rising and falling in knobs. Its extremity is thin and 

 knobbed." 



In Mangalore the citron is called " mauling," and it 

 is not impossible that this is only a transformation of 

 the " baleng " of Baber, or vice versa. The Arabs 

 were among the oldest traders on the western coast of 

 India, and the modern Malabari Moormen of that 

 coast are probably descendants of those Arabs. 



Sanskrit scholars say that the word bajoura comes 

 from the Sanskrit bfja-pure, "full of seeds," which 

 both the tiirunj and the bajoura of India often are. 

 But from Baber's memoirs, it would appear probable 

 that the " bajoura " is so named after Bajour, a district 

 on the N.W. frontier.* 



* Vide Appendix, No. i (c) 



