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

APPENDIX II ROMANCE OF BETEL-CHEWING 255
after a meal (ch. xlvi) he says 1 that the intelligent eater
should partake of some fruit of an astringent, pungent or
bitter taste, or chew a betel leaf prepared with broken areca-
nut, camphor, nutmeg, clove, etc.
By the time of Somadeva the custom was so common as
to call for no description on the part of a native writer, and
we shall get no detailed information until we begin to search
among the journals of early travellers to India.
l
Abd Allah ibn Ahmad (1225)
One of the earliest of these was the Arabian physician
cAbd Allah ibn Ahmad, who, in his treatise on drugs, written
about a.d. 1225, says as follows 2 :
"
Betel is seldom brought to us from India now, because
the leaves once dried go into dust for lack of moisture. Such
as comes to Yemen and elsewhere can be preserved if cut on
the branch and then kept in honey. It is an error to think
that betel is this leaf which is now found among
us which has
the form and odour of the laurel which is known at Basra by
spice merchants as kamdri leaf, and which comes from the
country of that name, Elkamer, as I have been told. There
are physicians in our time who say that this leaf is the leaf
of the malabathrum, and who use it as such, but that is an
error."
He also quotes from several earlier Arab writers, among
whom is Sherif, who thus describes the custom :
"
Tambil (betel) is hot in the first degree and dry in the
third. It dries the humidities of the stomach and fortifies a
weak liver. The leaf eaten or taken with water perfumes the
breath, drives care away, raises the intelligence.
The Indians
use it instead of wine after their meals, which brightens their
minds and drives away their cares. This is the manner of
taking : If one wishes to do it, one takes a leaf, and at the
1
Bhishagratna's translation, vol. i, p. 562.
2 See J. von Sontheimer, Grosse Zusammenstellung liber die Krafte der
bekannten einfachen Heil- und Nahrungsmittel von Abu Mohammed Abdallah Ben
Ahmed aus Malaga bekannt unter den Namen Ebn Baithar, Stuttgart, 1840-1842,
vol. i, pp. 200, 201. I am indebted to Mr W. H. Schoff for drawing my
attention to fAbd Allah ibn Ahmad.