The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

244 THE OCEAN OF STORY
besides what has already been mentioned. Garcia replies :
" They mix cate with it, and important persons add camphor
of Borneo, some lin aloes, and almisquere, or ombre"
Here we have a new ingredient almisquere, also written
almiscre, almisere and almisque, in which we recognise the
salip misri of Egypt, Persia and India, the Arabic sahleb,
the Greek fyxs and our salep. It consists of the tuberous
roots of various species of Orchis and Eulophia. They are
stripped of their bark, heated until they assume a horny
appearance, and then allowed to dry slowly. The use of
salep in betel-chewing seems to have been of very rare occur-
rence. Orta goes on to say that Bahadur, King of Cambay,
declared camphor to be an anti-aphrodisiac, but that if used
in small quantities, mixed with other ingredients, it had not
that effect. On some occasions the king presents betel
with his own hands, " or else by others called Xarabdar or
Tambuldar."
After again describing the method of preparing and
chewing betel, he returns to the etymology of betel :
Orta. The name in Malabar is betre, and in the Deccan,
Guzerat and Canara, pam. The Malays call it ciri.
Ruano. Why is the Malabar name adopted rather than
the others ? It would be more reasonable to call it folium
indum, 1 or we might call it pam, as it is called in Goa.
Orta. We call it betel because Malabar was the first part of
India known to the Portuguese, and I remember in Portugal
that they did not say they came to India, but to Calicut.
This was because Calicut was the place whence all the drugs
and spices were taken up the Strait of Mecca. It was a very
rich place, and now, in revenge for what we did in Calicut,
all that business is lost. Although the King of Calicut
is emperor, he has less power than he of Cochin, because we
helped him at first. This is why all the names you see that
are not Portuguese are Malayalim. For instance, betre and
chune, which is lime ; maynato, washerman ; patamar^
a runner ; and many others. As for calling it Folium
Indum, as you suggest, it is not so called in any language;
besides, the Folium Indum is quite different. Avicenna gives
chapters for one and the other separately.
1 This is the malobathrum of Pliny, to be identified with various species,
of Cinnamomum, of which the chief are C. tamala (the Cassia lignea) and
C. zeylanicum (true cinnamon).