by Colonel Sykes. 



173 



injurious to the plants. Should the rains prove abundant, of course 

 watering is unnecessary in the second crop. The acid grapes 

 are used by the natives for preserves, and for a peculiar kind of 

 pickle. The most expensive kind is the Hubshee, which, when they 

 first come in, sell at the rate of a shilling a pound, but afterwards 

 cheapen, to about three or four pounds for a shilling. The Ahbee 

 sell, according to the time and the quantity in the market, from four 

 pounds to twelve pounds for a shilling ; Sahibee six pounds for a 

 shilling in January and February ; Bedana, in the same months, four 

 pounds. In addition to the above the Portugal round black grape 

 is met with at Poona but, it is not held in estimation. It may not be 

 unamusing to know, in illustration of vEsop's " Fox and the Grapes," 

 that the principal depredators in vineyards in Dukhun (Deccan) 

 are the Fox's congeners the jackalls, troops of which commit such 

 ravages at the period of the ripening of the fruit in spite of persons 

 being stationed at night to protect the vineyard, as to occasion great 

 loss to the owners. 



Regarding the range of the growth of the Vine within the tropics 

 in India, I am enabled to state on the authority of that distinguished 

 observer, Sir Wiiitelaw Ainslie, the author of the Materia Medica 

 of India, that a very fine species of white grape (apparently the 

 Fukree), flourishes at Pondieherry, on the Coromandel coast, in 

 lat. 11° 56' N. and long. 79" 58' E. of Greenwich; consequently 

 six degrees nearer to the equator than the grapes grown in the 

 Deccan, and in a much higher mean temperature. 



I have enumerated seven kinds of grapes as being met with in 

 the market in Dukhun, viz. the Hubshee, or ^jf^ Kalee, the 3fff%" 

 Ahbee, or Bhokree, the q^ff Fukree, the ^jf^f^- Sahibee, the 

 %^T0TT Be Dana, the g^ffpft Sooltanee, and the S uckree, 

 or Sugared ; but I am not satisfied that the Sooltanee is not a va- 

 riety of the Ahbee, and the Suckree of the Bedana. In a conversa- 

 tion with a Moosulman of the name of Ali Khan, of the village 

 of Chicholee, Turmf Boeehra, who has several vineyards, he de- 



