410 



son. Powdered sandal- wood is sprinkled on 1113^ limbs, not pale 

 ashes. O, god of love! mistake me not for Maiiadeva ; wound 

 me not again; approach me not in anger; hold not in thy hand 

 the shaft barbed by an arnra flower!" 



The custard-apple, or ramphul, is delineated in the first volume 

 with the bulbul, or Indian nightingale. The sitaphi/I, another 

 species of custard-apple, is not engraved. When I made the 

 drawings, and abridged my description of the Indian fruits, I knew 

 not of their symbolical meaning, nor religious dedication, as men- 

 tioned in the Hindoo Pantheon ; where the ramphul, or fruit of 

 Rama, is said in its shape to form a cone, and is hence sacred to 

 Siva; as placed on its base it resembles a pyramid. Its coat is 

 exceedingly rough, being divided into lozenges by lines deeply in- 

 dented, drawn spirally right and left, and intersecting each other, 

 from the insertion of the stalk to the tip. " Another species is 

 named sitaphul, after Sita, spouse of Ram a (incarnations of Vish- 

 noo and Lacsiimi) ; this fruit is delectably smooth and soft out- 

 side, and in shape not so conical as the other. It is fancied to 

 resemble the mamma of the human female ; and legends are popu- 

 larly related of the origin and application of these appellations, 

 which I shall not explain or detail. It is not always that the 

 popular legends of Hindoo fabulists will bear expounding to an 

 European reader." 



I failed in many of the seeds gathered from those fragrant trees 

 and shrubs, which in such great variety delight the Indians; espe- 

 cially the females of every caste and description. The fields, as 

 well as gardens, around Surat, are cultivated for this purpose, not 

 only to adorn the ladies, but the Hindoo temples, images, and 



