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11,29-30
ALOES. 225
Note.
Asa-foetida is a gum-resin, the product of the Narthex asa-foetida of Falconer. It was
prmcipally collected in the Persian province of Laristan - which confined on the Mekran - our
author s Mu-ka-lan. It is also found near Kandahar. See Bretschneider Medieval Researches,
5 I. 85 In Sanskrit it is called Am^ru POn-ts-au-kang-mu, 34,61-62, gives the Persian name as
a-yu-(isie), and the Indian as Mn-k'u (|^ ^), and Mng-yu (^ ^)
The earliest mention I have found of this drug occurs in Sd-shu, 83,16" where «a.wei
medicine» is mention^among the products of the kingdom of Ts'au (i^) which, it says, is the
same as the Ki-pin (^ ^ Cabul) of the Han period. A-wei is a foreign word, derived pre-
10 sumahly from the Sanskrit or Persian name of the drug.
The next mention of the drug occurs in Huan-tsang's Si-yu-ki (12,i. Julien. Pelerins
Bouddhistes,II, 187), where ho gives itsSanskrit name liing-k'ii (M Ji ^), and says that it is
found in the country of Tsjau-ka-ta (
>;§ ^ p:^ the Ts'au of Sui-3hu);Te capital of which he
notes is Ho-si-na
(^j| ^ ^[J Ghazni).
15 Yu-yang-tsa-tsn, 18,8^ says eA-viei comes from K'ie-sho-na (^ ^ ^\^ Ghazni),
which is also called Northern India. In K'ie-sho-na it is called /ifn^-yw It also comes
(^ J^).
from Po-ssi (Persia), where it is called a-yu-tsie (^ ^ ^ Persian angvmd, anguea). It grows
to 80 or 90 feet (1). The bark is a yellowish green. The leaves come out in the third moon; they
are like a rat's ear in shape. It has neither blossoms nor fruit. When a branch is cut off, the sap
20 flows like syrup and for a long time. When it coagulates, it is called a-wel. Wan (A)
the monk from Fu-lin, agrees with T'i-p'o (^ ^ Deva) the monk from Mo-k'ie-to (Maga^a,
or Central India) in saying that a-wei is formed by the joining together, of particles of the sap
25
each of the size of a grain of rice or a bean.n
30.
ALOES (M #).
Lu-wei comes from the land of Nu-fa of the Ta-shi country. It is
derived from a vegetable product, which looks like the tail of a king-crab.
The natives gather it and pound it with implements made of jadestone, after
which it is boiled into an ointment and packed in skin bags, and this is
30 called lu-wei.
Note.
Our author states (supra, p. 131) that lu-wei was a product of an island off the Somali coast,
which must be the island of Socotra, whence it was probably taken to Nu-fa on the Hadramaut
coast for exportation. The name lu-wei seems to be Persian cHwa, the name given the Socotran
35 aloes (Aloe Socotrina, Lam.). Yule and Burnell, Glossary, 10. See also Thos. Walters,
Essays, 332.
The Socotran product must have disappeared from the Chinese market after our author
wrote, for in the Ming dynasty the substance w^ich went by the name of lu-wei, but which was
also called nu-hui (-h^ ^), no-hui (^(| '^) and siang-tan (^ J|g
welephant's gall») was,
40 as it is now, catechu, a product of the Acacia catechu (Sanskrit khadira, see supra, p. 196, n. 1).
See P5n-ts'au-kang-mu, 34,63*'— 64, and Bretschneider, Ancient Chinese and Arabs, 20, note 5.
Edrisi (1, 47), speaking of the aloes of Socotra, says: «In the month of July the leaves are
gathered; the juice is then extracted and dried in the sun, and iu the month of August it is
packed in skin bags.»
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