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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1885.
boats traverse the Akesines (i.e. Chenab river). So also Diodorus Siculas, who has written to the following effect :-"In India the lands bordering rivers and marshes yield reeds of prodigious size. It is all that a man can do to embrace one. Canoes are made from them."
Ktësias's account, as given by Photios, o is that the Indian reed grows along the course of the Indus, and that it is "so thick that two men could scarcely encompass its stem with their arms, and of a height equal to that of a mast of a merchant ship of the heaviest burden. Some are of a greater size even than this, though some are of less, as might be expected, since the mountain it grows on is of vast range. The reeds are distinguished by sex, some being male and others female. The male reed has no pith and is exceedingly strong, but the female has a pith." Tzetzes, 1 Theophrastos, 18 and Strabo are other authors who treat of this subject. I have in the preceding note given an account of the kand reed (Typha elephantina, Roxb.), which has been suggested as an alternative with the bamboo by Lassen; bat although, as stated, bundles of its slender stalks, when dried, are used for mere purposes of flotation on the Indus, it cannot have been made into canoes.
Statements made by Lassen and Sprengel, that the bamboo sometimes has a diameter of two feet, are quite incorrect. Nine inches is an extreme and very exceptional limit," and as the larger species of bamboo do not occur near the Indus, on account of their only flourishing in moist tropical climates, we must look to some other tree as having furnished, when the stem was split, almost ready-made boats capable of holding several people. At the present day, excluding timber dog-outs made of Bombax, &c., the only trees 80 employed are palms; and among the species 80 used, namely, the cocoanut, the date-palm, and the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis, Lirm.) I should be inclined to give the preference to the latter, as it is cultivated in Lower Sind. The diameter of a full-grown tree is from 18 to 24 inches, or the circumference is, say, six
• Bibl., lib. II. $ xvii. p. 132. 10 Conf. Ancient India, by J. W. M'Crindle, p. 10. 11 Conf. Ancient India, by J. W. M'Crindle, P. 10.
+ Khiliader, VII. v. 739, from third book of Αραβικιον of Uranias. '13 Plant. Hist. ix. 11.
Nibid: 1v. 21. * Brandis' Forest Flora, p. 554, gives for the stems of
feet at the base; the height is from 40 to 60 feet, and in favourable localities, as in Burma, 100 feet. Canoes, capable of holding two or three people, are made from the stems of this palm in many parts of India at the present day. It is noteworthy, moreover, that the Sanskrit name is Trinarája, i.e. king of the grasses or reeds, from which in all probability the Greeks derived the name which they applied to it. The Phaniw dactylifera, or date-palm, which is now the common palm in the Indus Valley, attains a height of 100 to 120 feet, and the trunks of male trees may perhaps be used for canoes; but if, as is stated by Brandis, it was only introduced into Sind in the eighth century, it certainly cannot have been the tree mentioned by our ancient authors.
5. THE NAUPLIOS (Nuúruos). Cocos nucifera.-The Indian Cocoanat. Under the name Nauplios, which Müller suggests, as stated by Mr. M'Crindle, is a mistake for vapyros (the Persian närgil or Sanskrit nárikela), the author of the Periplus," refers to the cocoannt, while Kosmas" gives a very good description of it, under the name argellia, evidently a transliteration of the native name minus the initial n.
6. THE PAREDON TREE (Ilápnjov). Ficus religiosa, Linn.-The Pipal, Hin.
The parébon tree, as described by Ktësias, according to Photios," was a plant about the size of the olive, found only in the royal gardens, producing neither flower nor fruit, but having merely fifteen roots, which grow down into the earth, and are of considerable thickness, the very slenderest being as thick as one's arm. If a span's length of this root be taken it attracts to itself all objects brought near it (Tárra IKEL #pòs cavrov), gold, silver and copper, and all things except amber. If, however, a cubit's length of it be taken, it attracts lambs and birds, and it is, in fact, with this root that most kinds of birds are caught. Should you wish to turn water solid, even a whole gallon of it, you have but to throw into it but an obol's weight of this root, and the thing is Bambus arundriancea, Rets, diameters varying from four to nine inches. 16 Forest Flora, p. 558.
The Erythrean 8e1, by J. W. M'Crindle, p. 26. 1 Ancient India, p. 05.
• Ecloga in Photii, Bibl. lxxii. Conf. Ancient India, by J. W. M'Crindle, p. 20.
