249 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIL, 
work, and a correction of the contemporary geographers who would 
empty the Indus into the Gulf of Cambay. 
Passing the Mahi, Pietro got to Cambay, where his observations, 
though accurate and interesting, were outside of our province. 
Then he marched to Ahmedabad, and saw on the way, as he 
would to-day, “ abundance of monkies ’’ and “high hedges of a plant 
always green and unfruitful, not known in Europe, and having no 
leaves (this was in March), but instead thereof covered with certain 
long and slender branches, almost like ovr sparagus, but bigger, 
harder and thicker, of a very lively green ; being broken they send 
forth milk like that of immature figgs, which is very pernicious 
to the flesh wherever it touches. The Editor very modestly says, “ Pro- 
bably a species of Huphorbia.” Had he ridden in the Charotar, the 
“Garden of Gujarat,’ where Della Valle saw the hedges, he would 
have had no doubt about HKuphorbium veriifoléum, the “ prickly 
milk-bush,” cultivated in those parts to a perfection that has twice 
called for British Artillery to batter down the living walls of predatory 
villages. 
Our traveller saw many things worth note in Ahmedabad, but 
chiefly in respect of “ Homo sapiens ” and without our present scope. 
On his return he marched to Cambay by Barejri and Sojitra, 
where he saw “ Batts as large as crows.’ It seems a little odd that 
he had not noticed the “ Flying Foxes” before. The Editor on this 
subject tells us that bat is derived from a (presumably Saxon or 
Danish) verb “ blaka” =to flutter. At Cambay Della Valle again 
observed the “bore” of the Gulf, and preserved a specimen of a 
flower, “‘ very odoriferous, which they call Ciompd.” There is nothing 
else to show which of all our “ Champas ” this was, but one would 
suppose that it was the “ Hirwa Champa,” an Uvaria, because it 
alone of them has no other merit than its scent. On the 7th of March 
the Kafila again passed the Mahi with some danger from the bore, 
which did not prevent Pietro from noticing many flamingoes ; “ and” 
(says he) “I think they are those of whose beaks Mir Muhammad in 
Spahan (Ispahan) makes bowrings for the kings.” The Editor has 
missed the point of this observation by supposing the “ bowring ” to be 
a part of the bow. It is, or rather was, a guard for the left thumb of the 
archer against the stroke of the bowstring, and could very well be 
