110 
THE FLOWERS AND PLANTS 
showed that it was a valerian ; not the same 
with the valerian known in Europe as Nardus 
Celtica, but of the same family. 
• " The drawing was engraved to accompany 
Sir W. Jones's dissertation on the Spikenard 
of the ancients, in the second volume of the 
Asiatic Researches ; and copied and embel- 
lished from a description by Haynes in his 
Arzney Gewachse. 
" It might have been objected that the scent 
of the valerians is in general not very agree- 
able, and therefore the rich perfume whose 
fragrance filled the whole house could not 
proceed from one of these: but, in the first 
place, we cannot judge of what perfumes were 
most agreeable to the ancients ; and, in the 
second place, the odour of the Spikenard is 
nowhere said to have been used alone. It 
was certainly, among the ancients, used as the 
modern Hindoos use it, mingled with fragrant 
oils and spices, ' according to the art of the apo- 
thecary ;' and those of Laodicea and of Tarsus 
had the reputation of making the best. All 
the spices of the Eastern isles, the oils of 
reeds and grass, those of santal and of lign 
aloes, made part of the precious compound 
which was sold in boxes of onyx and of ala- 
baster. 
" When Horace invites Yirgil to a feast, he 
tells him his share of the contribution is to be 
the perfume, while he gives the wine : 
' Thy little box of Spikenard shall produce 
A mighty cask that in the cellar lies.' 
And such, as I shall by and by show, had been 
the use of the Spikenard in Judea from remote 
antiquity. 
" It is curious that an ointment into which 
Spikenard enters, should be still used in Upper 
Egypt and Abyssinia to anoint the face and 
preserve the skin from the effects of the burn- 
ing sun ; and it is still more curious, that, 
when Hasselquist travelled in Egypt, he found 
that the Venetian merchants annually brought 
sixty tons of Celtic Spikenard, which is cer- 
tainly a valerian, to Cairo, where the Nubians 
and Abyssinians bought it at the great price 
of one hundred rix-dollars a ton, because the 
Indian Spikenard was so scarce as to be hardly 
procurable. 
" It happened, by a curious coincidence, 
that just at the time when Sir William Jones 
had thus supposed he had traced the true 
Spikenard to its native country, and published 
his account of the Valerian Jatamansi, that 
the late Sir Gilbert Blane imagined he had 
found in it a very different plant, which had 
been sent him by his brother from Lucknow, 
and of which he gave specimens to Sir Joseph 
Banks. On examination, it proved to be a 
grass of the genus Andropogon, differing, 
however, from any before described. Thus 
LinnEeus's conjecture, that the Spikenard is a 
grass, appeared to be confirmed. 
" The manner in which Mr. Blane dis- 
covered this grass is worthy of notice. In 
1 786 he was out on a hunting expedition with 
the Nabob Vizier of Lucknow, when one day 
the air became suddenly perfumed with a most 
agreeable odour. On inquiry, he found that 
it proceeded from the grass which the elephants 
were bruising under foot ; upon which he im- 
mediately collected some of the plants, and set 
part in his garden at Lucknow, and part he 
sent to his brother in England. This adven- 
ture of Mr. Blane's resembled closely a story 
related by Arrian, in his account of the march 
of Alexander to India. He says that, when 
the Macedonian army was passing through 
Gedrosia near the Indus, the air was perfumed 
by the Spikenard trodden under foot by the 
soldiers, and that the Phoenicians who accom- 
panied the expedition collected large quan- 
tities of it to carry to their own country as 
merchandise. The fact of Mr. Blane's dis- 
covery of the scented Andropogon, and the 
story from Arrian, formed the subject of a 
paper read before the Royal Society ; and, by 
most persons, the Andropogon Nardus Indica 
was at the time received as the Spikenard of 
the ancients. 
" The paper was sent by Blane to Sir W. 
Jones, who read it, as he says, with great 
pleasure, but without conviction ; and he easily 
overturned whatever evidence might be sup- 
posed to be afforded by Arrian, showing that 
that author was little trustworthy, especially 
in matters concerning natural history, as he 
asserted that cinnamon, myrrh, and other 
spices and gums, all grew abundantly in Ara- 
bia, where it is certain they never could have 
been found. Sir William's essay, in the fourth 
volume of the Asiatic Researches, also shows 
that the geography of Arrian will not tally 
with Mr, Blane's discovery ; and proves pretty 
clearly that the Andropogon in question cannot 
be the true Spikenard. 
" He goes on then, with as much good sense 
as learning, to show that the Valeriana Jata- 
mansi of Butan had the best claim to the 
venerable name of Spikenard. And this was 
one of the last botanical essays that accom- 
plished gentleman and Christian scholar lived 
to write. 
" Dr. Roxburgh, in the same volume of the 
Researches, makes some valuable remarks, and 
gives a scientific description of the plant. 
Time, however, and the advance made by the 
English in the North of India, showed that, 
either by accident or design, proceeding from 
the commercial j ealousy of the government of 
Butan, a wrong species of the plant had been 
received by Mr. Burn at Gaya : but Dr. Wal- 
lich was fortunate enough to find the true 
