VOL. LXXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 659 



principally in the husky roots, which in chewing have a bitter, warm, pungent 

 taste, accompanied with some degree of that kind of glow in the mouth which 

 cardamoms occasion." 



Besides the drawing, a dried specimen has been sent, which was in such good 

 preservation as to enable Sir Joseph Banks, p. r. s., to ascertain it by the botani- 

 cal characters to be a species of Andropogon, different from any plant that has 

 usually been imported under the name of Nardus, and different from any of 

 that genus hitherto described in botanical systems. There is great reason how- 

 ever to think, that it is the true Nardus Indica of the ancients; for first, the 

 circumstance, in the account above recited, of its being discovered in an unfre- 

 quented country from the odour it exhaled by being trodden on by the elephants 

 and horses, corresponds, in a striking manner, with an occurrence related by 

 Arrian, in his History of the Expedition of Alexander the Great into India. It 

 is there mentioned, lib. 6, cap. 22, that during his march through the desarts 

 of Gadrosia, the air was perfumed by the Spikenard, which was trampled under 

 foot by the army; and, that the Phoenicians, who accompanied the expedition, 

 collected large quantities of it, as well as of myrrh, in order to carry them to 

 their own country, as articles of merchandize. This last circumstance seems 

 further to ascertain it to have been the true Nardus; for the Phoenicians, who 

 even in war appear to have retained their genius for commerce, could no doubt 

 distinguish the proper quality of this commodity. Dr. B. was informed by 

 Major Rennell, p. r. s., whose accurate researches in Indian geography are so 

 well known to the public, that Gadrosia or Gedrosia answers to the modern 

 Mackran or Kedge-Mackran, a maritime province of Persia, situated between 

 Kerman (the ancient Carmania) and the river Indus, being of course the fron-, 

 tier of Persia towards India; and that it appears from Arrian's account, and from 

 a Turkish map of Persia, that this desart lies in the middle of the tract of country 

 between the river Indus and the Persian Gulph, and within a few days' march of 

 the Arabian or Erythraean sea*. It would appear, that theNard was found to- 

 wards the eastern part of it; for Alexander was then directing his route to the 

 westward, and the length of march through the desart afterwards was very great, 

 as they were obliged to kill their beasts of burden in consequence of their sub- 

 sequent distress. 2dly, Though the accounts of the ancients concerning this 

 plant are obscure and defective, it is evident that it was a plant of the order of 

 gramina; for the term arista, so often applied to it, was appropriated by them to 

 the fructification of grains and grasses, and seems to be a word of Greek ori- 

 ^nal to denote the most excellent portion of these plants, which are the most 



* By the Erythraean Sea the ancients meant the northern part of the Ethiopia Ocean, washing 

 the southern coasts of Arabia and Persia, and not, as the name would imply, what is, in modem 

 times, called the Red Sea. The ancient name of the Red Sea was Sinus Arabicus. — Orig. 



4p 2 



