ASAFCETIDA. 317 



{terra limosa) which is added to the extent of an equal, or even double, 

 weight of the gum-resin, according to the softness of the latter. 



After the last cutting, the roots are allowed to rest 8 or 10 days, 

 when a thicker exudation called jnspaz, more esteemed than the first, is 

 obtained by a similar process carried on at intervals during June and 

 July, or even latter, until the root is quite exhausted. 



The only recent account of the production of asafoetida that we have 

 met with, is that of Stafi-surgeon H. W. Bellew, who witnessed the 

 collection of the drug in 1857 in the neighbourhood of Kandahar.^ 

 The frail withered stem of the previous year with the cluster of newly- 

 sprouted leaves, is cut away from the top of the root, around which 

 a trench of 6 inches wide and as many deep, is dug in the earth. 

 Several deep incisions are now made in the upper part of the root, and 

 this operation is repeated every 3 or 4 days as tlie sap continues to 

 exude, which goes on for a week or two according to the strength of 

 the plant. The juice collects in tears about the top of the root, or 

 when very abundant flows into the hollow around it. In all cases as 

 soon as incisions are made, the root is covered with a bundle of loose 

 twigs or herbs, or even with a heap of stones, to protect it from the 

 drying effects of the sun. The quantity of gnm-resin obtained is 

 variable ; some roots yield scarcely half an ounce, othere as much as 

 two pounds. Some of the roots are no larger than a carrot, others 

 attain the thickness of a man's leg. The drug is said to be mostly 

 adulterated before it leaves the country, by admixture of powdered 

 gypsum or flour. The finest sort, which is generally sold pure, is 

 obtained solely " from the node or leaf-bud in the centre of the root- 

 head." At Kandahar, the price of this superior drug is equivalent 

 to from 2.S-. ScZ. to 4s. ScZ, per lb., while the ordinary sort is worth but 

 from Is. to 2s. 



During a journey from North-western India to Teheran in Persia, 

 through Beluchistan and Afghanistan, performed in the spring of 1872, 

 the same traveller observed the asafoetida plant in great abundance on 

 many of the elevated undulating pasture-covered plains and hills of 

 Afghanistan, and of the Persian province of Khorassan. He states that 

 the plant is of two kinds, the one called Kamd-i-gaivi which is grazed 

 by cattle and used as a potherb, and the other known as Kamd-i-a7igij.za 

 which afibrds the gum-resin of commerce. The collecting of this last 

 is almost exclusively in the hands of the western people of the Kakarr 

 tribe, one of the most numerous and powerful of the Afghan clans, who, 

 when thus occupied, spread their camps over the plains of Kandahar to 

 the confines of Herat.^ 



Wood, in his journey to the source of the Oxus, found asafoetida to 

 be largely produced in a district to the north of this, namely the moun- 

 tains around Saigan or Sykan (lat. 35° 10, long. 67"" 40), where, says he, 

 the land afibrding the plant is as regularly apportioned out and as 

 carefully guarded as the cornfields on the plain.^ 



Description — The best asafoetida is that consisting chiefly of 

 slightly or not agglutinated tears. This is the Kandahan-Hing of the 



^ Journal of a Mission, to Afghanistan, London. 1874. 101. 102. 286. 321. &c. 

 Lond. 1862. 270 * Wood, Journey to the Source of the River 



2 Bellew, From the Indus to the Tigris, Oxus, new ed. 1872, 131. 



