Foreign Vegetables. 401 
Accounts given of it by Authors, under the Names 
of Kbaath, Cate, Catechu , Caetchu , Cnftjoe , &c. it 
is difficult to determine the Plant which produces 
it : Nay, we may conclude rather that it is drawn by 
Co&ion from many different Plants. 
For if we hear Garcias , the Tree from which the 
Juice Cate is extracted, is as large as an Affi-tree, 
with a fmall Leaf, very like common Heath, or 
Tamarifk. It is ever-green and thick fet with 
Thorns. The Method of extracting its Juice he 
relates thus. They boil the Branches of the Tree 
cut fmall, and then bruife them ; afterwards, with 
the Meal of Nachani , and with the Saw-duft of a 
certain black Wood which grows there (though 
this is not always added) they form Paftils and 
Tablets, which are left in the Shade to dry. 
Bontius deferibes the fame Tree as having its 
Trunk and Branches befet with a great Number of 
Thorns, with Leaves almoft like Savin or the Tree 
called Arbor Vita, but not fo fat and thick. It 
bears, fays he, round Beans, wherein are included 
three, or, at the mod, four Nuts, which are fo hard as 
not to break betwixt the Teeth. From the Root, 
Bark and Leaves, an Extradl is drawn by boiling, 
termed Cate, which both thefe Authors fuppofe to 
be the Lycium Indicum of Dio f cor ides. 
But Herbert de Jager, in the Ephemerid. German . 
Decad. 2. Ann. 3. writes that the Lycium Indicum or 
Cate of Garcias, called by the Indians , Kbaath , and 
by the Perftans , Reng, is a Juice extracted not from 
one Tree only, but from almoft all the Species of 
Acacia, whofe Bark is aftringent and reddiffi, and 
from many other Plants, which by boiling yield a 
Juice of the like Sort; and all thefe Juices are 
comprehended in thofe Countries under the com- 
mon Name of Kbaath , though they differ both in 
Goodnefs and Virtue. 
Dd 
He 
