WESTERN HINDOOSTAN. 145 



price in the luxurious Coromandel, and other parts. Linjcofany 

 and M. Sonnerat, give prints of the effeminate great men of 

 India, attended by their flavifh train, and making their fellow- 

 creatures their beafts of burden, who go at the rate of two 

 leagues an hour : I obferve fome of their attendants in the 

 fafliion of the high toed flioes, prohibibited in England in the 

 reign of Edward IV*. Some I obferve attended with a dwarf 

 or two, acuftom formerly very frequent, even in the European 

 courts. 



This reed is alfo called Mambu, and was celebrated in early 

 times by the Arabian phyficians, for producing from its joints 

 a fort of infpillated juice, of a fweet talle, called I'abaxar, and Tabaxar. 

 Sacar Mambii. It often grows dry, and is difcovered by its 

 rattling within the hollow of the reedt. It was a famed medi- 

 cine with all the Orientalijls, in outward and inward heats, 

 bilious fevers, and other diforders of that nature, and in dyfen- 

 teries ; and it was reckoned peculiarly efficacious in difcharges 

 of coagulated blood, fo frequently left in internal wounds. 

 Thefe ufes made it once a great article of export from the 

 Malabar ports. The Brahmins alfo ufe this Sacar in their 

 medical prefcriptions. 



In this hot country, the reed is often applied to another ufe, 

 adapted to refrefli the exhaufted native; it is bent fo as to form 

 arbours and cool walks of confiderable length, delicious retreats 

 from the rays of the vertical fun. Finally, the application of 

 it as an inftrument of punhhment (in China at left), of the moft 



* HolinfheJ's Chron, p. 668. f AcoHa, in Eluf. Exot. 164, 246. 



Vol. I. U fevere 



