IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Sino-Iranica : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE GRAPE-VINE 231
The pit in which the grapes are stored is covered with loam, and thus an even temperature is secured throughout the winter.'
The Jesuit missionaries of the eighteenth century praise the raisins of Hoai-lai-hien2 on account of their size: "Nous parlons d'après le témoignage de nos yeux : les grains de ces grappes de raisins sont gros comme des prunes damas-violet, et la grappe longue et grande à proportion. Le climat peut y faire; mais si les livres disent vrai, cela vient originairement de ce qu'on a enté des vignes sur des jujubiers; et l'épaisseur de la peau de ces raisins nous le ferait croire."3
Raisins are first mentioned as being abundant in Yün-nan in the Yün-nan ki4 (" Memoirs regarding Yün-nan "), a work written in the beginning of the ninth century. Li Si-èen remarks that raisins are made by the people of the West as well as in T'ai-yuan and P`irn-yarn in San-si Province, whence they are traded to all parts of China. Hami in Turkistan sends large quantities of raisins to Peking.' In certain parts of northern China the Turkish word kihmi for a small kind of raisin is known. It is obtained from a green, seedless variety, said to originate from Bokhara, whence it was long ago transplanted to Yarkand. After the subjugation of Turkistan under Kien-lun, it was brought to Jehol, and is still cultivated there."
Although the Chinese eagerly seized the grape at the first opportunity offered to them, they were slow in accepting the Iranian custom of making and drinking wine.' The Arabic merchant Soleiman (or whoever may be responsible for this account), writing in A.D. 851, reports that "the wine taken by the Chinese is made from rice; they do not make wine from grapes, nor is it brought to them from abroad;
1 A similar contrivance for the storage of oranges is described in the Mémoires concernant les Chinois, Vol. IV, p. 489.
2I presume that Hwai (or Hwo)-lu hien in the prefecture of den-tin, ti-li Province, is meant.
3 Mémoires concernant les Chinois, Vol. III, 1778, p. 498.
4 T'ai p'in yü lan, Ch. 972, p. 3.
6 An article on Hami raisins is inserted in the Mémoires concernant les Chinois (Vol. V, 178o, pp. 481-486). The introduction to this article is rather strange, an effort being made to prove that grapes have been known in China since times of earliest antiquity; this is due to a confusion of the wild and the cultivated vine. In Vol. II, p. 423, of the same collection, it is correctly stated that vine and wine became known under the reign of the Emperor Wu.
6 Cf. O. FRANKE, Beschreibung des Jehol-Gebietes, p. 76.
' The statement that Can IC lien taught his countrymen the art of making wine, as asserted by GILES (Biographical Dictionary, p. 12) and L. WIEGER (Textes historiques, p. 499), is erroneous. There is nothing to this effect in the Si ki or in the Han Annals.
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