SPIKENARD OF THE ANTIEXTS. II7 



alludes, is this: rt Sumbul," says the author of the 

 Kdmks, " is an odoriferous plant, the strongest of 

 " which is the S&r), and the weakest the Hindi ; 

 f* but the Sttmbitl of Rum has the name of nardin" 

 I suggested in my former paper, and shall repeat in 

 this, that the Indian spikenard, as it is gathered for 

 use, is in fact the whole plant ; but there is a better 

 reason why the name Sumbid has been applied to it. 

 By the way, Del la Valle sailed, as he tells us, 

 along the coast of Macrdn, which he too supposes to 

 have been a part of Gedrosia ; but he never had 

 heard that it produced Indian spikenard, though 

 the Persians were fully acquainted with that pro- 

 vince -, for he would not have omitted so curious a 

 fact in his correspondence with a learned physician 

 of Naples, for whose sake he was particularly inqui- 

 sitive concerning the drugs of Asia. It is much to 

 be wished, that he had been induced to make a short 

 excursion into the plains of Macrdn, where he 

 might have found, that the wonderful tree which 

 Arrian places in them, with, flowers like violets , and 

 with thorns of such force and magnitude, as to keep wild 

 beasts in captivity, and to transfix men on horseback 

 who rode by /hem incautiously, was no more, probably, 

 than a Mimosa, the blossoms of which resembled vio- 

 lets in nothing but in having an agreeable scent. 



Let us return to the Arabs, by whom Diosco- 

 rides was translated with assistance, which the wealth 

 of a great prince will always purchase, from learned 

 Greeks, and who know the Indian spikenard better 

 than any European, by the name of Sumbulul Hind. 

 It is no wonder that they represent it as weaker in 



I 3 scent 



