'"'^jlhJ'Zt'"''}   y4saf(^tidas  of  the  Bombay  Market.  321 
as  described  in  the  "Amanitales,"  except  that  the  slices  of  root  are 
mixed  with  the  juice. 
The  price  of  the  best  Hing  in  Bombay,  is  from  twenty  rupees  to 
twenty-two  rupees  per  maund  of  forty^pounds. 
Kandaharee  Hing  is  a  much  rarer  article,  and  only  occasionally  ap- 
pears in  this  market.  It  is  brought  from  Kandahar,  packed  in  goat 
skins,  which  are  sewn  up  into  an  irregularly  shaped  oblong  bag  with  the 
hairou  tside.  This  asafoetida,  when  fresh,  is  in  flaky  pieces  quite  wet 
with  essential  oil,  of  a  yellow  color,  opalescent,  with  an  odor  like  a 
mixture  of  garlic  and  oil  of  caraways.  When  kept  for  some  time  the 
gum  resin  loses  its  moisture  and  gradually  becomes  perfectly  transparent 
and  of  a  golden-yellow  color;  the  odor  also  loses  much  of  its  aroma, 
and  approximates  to  that  of  the  best  asafoetida  of  European  commerce. 
Some  packages  of  the  latter,  which  I  have  examined  this  season  in 
Bombay,  I  found  to  contain  small  portions  of  the  moist  opalescent  gum 
mixed  with  the  ordinary  opaque  kind,  as  well  as  with  some  fragments 
of  an  intermediate  character,  partly  opaque  and  partly  opalescent.  I 
believe  this  drug  will  turn  out  to  be  the  superior  kind  of  asafoetida 
noticed  by  Bellew  as  obtained  from  the  node  or  leaf-bud  at  Kandahar. 
Kandaharee  Hing  is  little  known  in  Bombay,  and  is  not  retailed  in  the 
shops.  It  fetches  about  double  the  price  of  Abushaheree,  and  is  not 
always  obtainable  ;  it  is  used  as  a  condiment  by  wealthy  people  in 
Northern  India. 
Hingra  or  the  asafoetida  of  European  commerce,  comes  to  Bombay 
in  large  quantities  from  two  sources,  viz.  :  Southern  Persia  and  Afghan- 
istan. The  Persian  drug  is  met  with  in  two  forms,  viz.  :  in  tears 
more  or  less  agglutinated  together,  and  secondly,  as  a  soft,  white,  viscid 
mass.  It  arrives  in  skins  or  boxes,  and  is  mostly  exported  to  Europe, 
but  some  is  used  in  India  as  a  condiment  or  medicinally  by  the  poorer 
classes.  This  gum  resin  is  the  Anghuzeh-i  Lari  of  the  Persians,  and 
there  seems  to  be  little  doubt  that  it  is  the  produce  of  Kampfer's  plant, 
whichever  that  may  be.  In  price  it  varies  much  ;  the  average  for  a 
good  quality  will  be  about  ten  rupees  per  forty  pounds. 
The  Afghan  drug  differs  somewhat  from  the  Persian  in  appearance 
and  odor.  The  best  samples  occur  in  small  flat  pieces  or  tears,  to  one 
side  of  which  a  few  particles  of  sand  are  adherent  as  if  the  gum  had 
run  out  into  the  ground  near  the  root ;  these  pieces  are  quite  hard  and 
dry,  yellowish-white  externally,  and  display  when  broken,  a  conchoidal 
milk-white  surface.     Many  packages,  as  already  mentioned,  under 
21 
