OF SCRIPTURE. 
Ill 
Jatamansi growing in the mountains of the 
northern provinces ; and his and Dr. Rox- 
burgh's descriptions were received in Europe 
as belonging to the true Spikenard of the 
ancients, and De Candolle named it Nardo- 
stachys Jatamansi. .. . 
" But in the year 1830 the claims of the 
Andropogon of Blane were revived ; and an 
elegant paper, drawn up by Charles Hatchett, 
Esq., and read before the Royal Society, after 
recapitulating Mr. Blane's discovery of the 
plant, and the historical proofs from Arrian, 
gives the following account of what he believes 
to be an unanswerable confirmation of the 
opinion originally entertained by Sir Gilbert 
Blane, that his brother had really discovered 
the ancient Spikenard. 
" Mr. Swinton, of Swinton, who had been 
thirty years resident in India, had passed some 
of that time in Malwa, where, being attacked 
by acute rheumatism, after suffering a great 
deal, he was persuaded by some of the native 
chiefs to try as a remedy the rhoonsee ha tiel, 
or oil of grass. Having experienced great 
benefit from it applied as an embrocation, he 
sent some to Dr. (afterwards Sir William) 
Russell, at Calcutta, who recommended it with 
good success to several patients. 
" Mr. Swinton learned that the oil had been 
prepared time immemorial in and around 
Malwa, the method being kept profoundly 
secret, though it is certain that it is obtained 
from the spike of the grass. 
" The Parsees appear at one time to have 
enjoyed a monopoly of this oil ; but it is now 
in the hands of the Mahommedan Borahs, who 
sell a small quantity at a very high price to 
the chiefs, and the rest to the Arab merchants, 
who carry it westward, where the greater part 
finds its way to the Turks and Egyptians, and 
a small portion to the Arabs of the Desert, 
who have a high opinion of its virtues. 
" But, though this account of the rhoonsee 
ha tiel, when added to Sir Gilbert Blane's 
former statement, might form a strong pre- 
sumption of the probability that the Andro- 
pogon was the Spikenard, there was no proof 
of its being so ; and, moreover, there was much 
that told against it, although Linnaeus, gather- 
ing the fragments of ancient description, had 
expressed his belief that the Spikenard was a 
grass. In the first place, the description of 
the drug Spikenard, like a bundle of ermines' 
tails, was inapplicable. Then the constant 
assertion that Spikenard came from the far 
East, the custom of the Nubians and Abyssi- 
nians, kept up without interruption, of com- 
pounding their ointment of Spikenard with a 
valerian of inferior quality as the best sub- 
stitute for the true Spikenard, are almost 
proofs that a grass growing to the west of 
India, and the like of which is to be found in 
Arabia and in many parts of Syria, instead of 
being brought from the Gangetic provinces, 
is not the ancient Spikenard. 
" The number and variety of the grasses 
yielding fragrant oil, precious medicine, and 
admirable as perfumes, in both the continent 
and islands of India, is very great ; and they 
are probably not all perfectly known y(st, not- 
withstanding the zealous search of modern 
botanists. One, at least, of these oils is culled 
Nardin ; and it appears that the word, or 
rather syllable, imrd, in the name of a plant, 
implies sweet-scented, in some of the old 
southern dialects of India, and also in Persian. 
" Among these I have already mentioned 
that Dr. Royle believes he has found the Cala- 
mus Aromaticus of the ancients, the Kanek 
bosem, or sweet cane of Scripture, which Clu- 
sius sought for so diligently, but in vain. 
" But it is time to return to the Jatamansi, 
which certainly is the drug sold for the Spike- 
nard, and described by the Greek, Arabian, 
and Hindoo physicians. 
" Dr. Royle, finding that a quantity of the 
root was brought down from the mountains, 
year by year, procured several pounds of it 
newly dug, at the end of the rainy season, at 
Nagul, a village five miles from Deyra, and 
one of the commercial store places at the foot 
of the mountains. These he planted in 
two different botanic gardens belonging to 
government, where they germinated ; and he 
has figured them in his elegant work on the 
natural history, particularly the botany, of the 
Himalaya Mountains. This shows that the 
plant is identical with that of which a drawing 
was sent home by Dr. Wallich, and which was 
published by Lambert, and described in the 
Flora of Nepal by Don. 
" Having, as I trust, given a faithful account 
of what is now known of the Spikenard, I 
must consider it as belonging to my Scripture 
Herbal. But, first, I may mention that our 
old English herbalists had, in different parts 
of the kingdom, given the name of Plough- 
man's Spikenard to a Baccharis and to a 
Conyza. The latter, indeed, still retains the 
name. It is remarkable for the agreeable 
perfume, resembling cinnamon, given out by 
its root in burning ; and is, no doubt, the 
Nard that Ben Jonson alludes to in his beau- 
tiful song : 
' Have you smelt the bud of the briar, 
Or the Nard in the fire ? ' 
" The use of perfumes at the feasts of the 
ancients was by no means confined to what 
we look upon as the classical ancients, who, in 
all probability, borrowed it from their Eastern 
neighbours, whose descendants continue the 
practice ; and with them, in Nubia, Ethiopia, 
and Arabia, the real Spikenard is used as a 
