COMMERCE OF INDIA. 



219 



Karpasa. Up to the first century after Christ the cotton tree 

 was, except in India, only cultivated in the small islands of 

 Tyros and Arados in the Persian Gulf. 



JEbonySbTLd teakwood, sugar-cane and bamboo-cane were in great 

 demand, the medicine Tabashir was derived from the latter. 

 Asafoetida in Sanskrit Bhutan, the enemy of evil spirits, was 

 a well known physic to the Alexandrian merchant and to 

 Hippokrates under the name of Butyros. This was after- 

 wards erroneously taken for Butyron, butter. Pliny (XII, 

 16 and XXIV, 77) mentions that the best Lycium, a medicine 

 prepared from a certain boxtree (Pyxacanthon), and the 

 reddish bark of the root of the Macir tree, which was consi- 

 dered as a specific for dysentery, came from India. 



India is rich in vegetable dyes, but its most famous is, no 

 doubt, Indigo, the Indikon of the Greek. Already Yitruvius 

 mentions the Indicus color, and Plinius distinguishes between 

 two different sorts of Indicum. The frequent attempts made 

 to adulterate it, show how highly it was appreciated. At 

 Selinos in Sicily surrogates of this description were manu- 

 factured. One pound of good Indigo fetched about 10 dinars 

 or 3 rupees. Among the Indian spices Pepper, pippali in 

 Sanskrit, was much in demand. It grows wild in Malabar. 

 Muziris and Nelkylda were the most frequented pepper 

 markets. Old Pliny could not understand why people should 

 take so great a fancy to such a hot article. A pound of white 

 pepper was sold at 7 dinars or 2 rupees, and a pound of black 

 pepper for a little more than 1 rupee. The collection of 

 pepper was associated in the medieval legends with wholesale 

 burning of venomous snakes, which infested the pepper 

 plantations. 



Another spice of great value and request was the Cassia. 

 The Laurus Cassia grows in Malabar and Canara, on the 

 Himalaya, in Bhutan and Nepal. The tree attains a height 

 of 60 feet, has white flowers, and its inner bark produces a 



