IIIF Color HighRes
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
346 SING-IRANICA
bling those of an Indigofera (lan); and in the same work' this plant is referred to Qara-Khoja it 1i under the name yan ife. Also the Ming Annals' contain the same reference. The plant in question has been identified by D. HANBURY with the camel-thorn (Alhagi camelorum), a small spiny plant of the family Leguminosae, growing in Iran and Turkistan.'
In the fourteenth century, ODORIC of Pordenone found near the city Huz in Persia manna of better quality and in greater abundance than in any part of the world.4 The Persian-Arabic manna was made known in Europe during the sixteenth century by the traveller and naturalist PIERRE BELON DU MONS (1518-64),5 who has this account: "Les Caloieres auoyêt de la Mane liquide recueillie en leurs montagnes, qu'ils appellent Tereniabin, a la differénce de la dure: Car ce que les autheurs Arabes ont appellé Tereniabin, est gardée en pots de terre comme miel, et l_a portent vendre au Caire: qui est ce qu' Hippocrates nomma miel de Cedre, et les autres Grecs ont nommé Rosée du mont Liban: qui est differente à la Manne blanche seiche. Celle que nous auons en France, apportée de Brianson, recueillie dessus les Meleses à la sommité des plus hautes montagnes, est dure, differente à la susdicte. Parquoy estant la Manne de deux sortes, lon en trouve au Caire de l'vne et de l'autre es boutiques des marchands, exposée en vente. L'vne est appellée Manne, et est dure: l'autre Tereniabin, et est liquide: et pource qu'en auons fait plus long discours au liure des arbres tousiours verds, n 'en dirons autre chose en ce lieu." The Briançon manna mentioned by Belon is collected from the larch-trees (Pinus larix) of southern France.' GARCIA DA ORTA7 described several kinds of manna, one brought to Ormuz from the country of the Uzbeg under the name xirquest or xircast, "which means the milk of a tree called quest, for xir [read §ir] is milk in the Persian language, so that it is the dew that falls
1 Ch. 24, p. 6, of the original edition; and Ch. 24, p. 3o b, of the edition of 1744.
2 Cil. 329 (cf. BRETSCHNEIDER, Medival Researches, Vol. II, Q. 192).
The plant is said to occur also in India (Sanskrit viçdladd and gdndhâri; that is, from Gândhara), Arabia, and Egypt, but, curiously, in those countries does not produce a sugar-like secretion. Consequently it cannot be claimed as the plant which furnished the manna to the Israelites in the desert (see the Dictionnaire de la Bible by F. VIGOUROUX, Vol. I, col. 367). The manna of northern India became known to the Chinese in recent times (see Lu d`an kun si k`ia Pc lh k , p. 44, in Ts`in dao l'an ts`un Su).
4 YULE, Cathay, new ed., Vol. II, p. 109; CORDIER'S edition of Odoric, p. 59. 6 Les Observations de plusieurs singularitez, pp. 228-229 (Anvers, 1555).
6 FLÜCKIGER and HANBURY, Pharmacographia, Q. 416.
7 C. MARKHAM, Colloquies, p. 280.
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