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ASAFOETIDA   357

el nombre le llaman Rabaçuz. De suerte que Robalçuz en Arabio, quiere dezir çumo basto de Regaliza: porque Rob, es çumo basto, y Al, articulo de genitiuo, de, y Cuz, regaliza, y todo junto significa çumo basto de Regaliza: y assi no se puede llamar a este çumo Assa dulcis. Los Indios la loan para el estomago, para facilitar el vientre, y para consumir las ventosidadas. Tambien curan con esta medicina los cauallos, que echan mucha ventosidad. En tanto tienen esta medicina que le llama aquella gente, principalmente la de Bisnaguer, manjar delos Dioses."

JOHN FRYER' relates, "In this country Assa Foetida is gathered at a place called Descoon ;2 some deliver it to be the juice of a cane or reed inspissated; others, of a tree wounded: It differs much from the stinking stuff called Hing, it being of the Province of Carmania :3 This latter is that the Indians perfume themselves with, mixing it in all their pulse, and make it up in wafers to correct the windiness of their food, which they thunder up in belchings from the crudities created in their stomachs; never thinking themselves at ease without this Theriac: And this is they cozen the Europeans with instead of Assa Fcetida, of which it bears not only the smell, but color also, only it is more liquid."

J. A. DE MANDELSLO4 reports as follows: "The Hingh, which our drugsters and apothecaries call Assa foetida, comes for the most part from Persia, but that which the Province of Utrad produces in the Indies is the best, and there is a great traffick driven in it all over Indosthan. The plant which produces it is of two kinds; one grows like a bush, and hath small leaves, like rice, and the other resembles a turnip-leaf, and its greenness is like that of fig-tree leaves. It thrives best in stony and dry places, and its gum begins to come forth towards the latter end of summer, so that it must be gathered in autumn. The traffick of it is so much the greater in those parts, upon this account, that the Benjans of Guzuratta make use of it in all their sawces, and rub their

1 New Account of East India and Persia, Vol. II, p. 195 (Hakluyt Soc., 1912).

2 Kuh-i Dozgan, west of Kuristan.

Hing is mentioned by FRYER (Vol. I, p. 286) as in use among the natives of southern India, "to correct all distempers of the brain, as well as stomach," "a sort of liquid Assa Foetida, whereby they smell odiously." This is the product of Ferula alliacea, collected near Yezd in Khorasan and in the province of Kerman, and chiefly used by the natives of Bombay (FLÜCKIGER and HANBURY, Pharmacographia, pp. 319-320; WATT, Commercial Products of India, p. 534). Fryer's distinction between hing and asafoetida shows well that there were different kinds and grades of the article, derived from different plants. Thus there is no reason to wonder that the Chinese Buddhist authors discriminate between hingu and a-wei (CHAVANNES and PELLIOT, Traité manichéen, p. 234) ; the cou ts'ai ("stinking vegetable") is probably also a variety of this product.

Voyages and Travels, p. 67 (London, 1669).