Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/180

 39. Nard (the root, from the lowlands, as distinguished from spikenard, the leaf or flower, from the mountains, a totally different species). This is the root of the ginger-grass, Cymbopogon schoenanthus, order Graminea, native in the Western Panjab, India, Beluchistan and Persia, and the allied species, C. jwarancusa, native more to the east and south. It is closely allied to the Ceylon citronella, C. nardus.

From the root of this grass was derived an oil which was used in Roman commerce medicinally and as a perfume, and as an astringent in ointments.

This is no doubt the nard found by the army of Alexander on its homeward march, in the country of the Gedrosians, of which Arrian says (Anabasis, VI, 22): “This desert produces many odoriferous roots of nard, which the Phoenicians gathered; but much of it was trampled down by the army, and a sweet perfume was diffused far and wide over the land by the trampling; so great was the abundance of it.”

39. Turquoise.—The text has callean stone, which seems the same as Pliny’s callaina (XXXVII, 33), a stone that came from “the countries lying back of India,” or more definitely, Khorassan. His description of the stone itself identifies it with our turquoise, which occurs abundantly in volcanic rocks intruding into sedimentary rocks in that district. The finest stones came from the mines near Maaden, about 48 miles north of Nishapur (the Nisaea of Alexander, 36° 30’ N., 58° 50' E. ). A natural trade-route from this locality would have been down the Kabul river, thence by the Indus to its mouth, where the author of the Periplus found the stones offered for sale.

(See also Heyd, Commerce du Levant au Moyen Age, II, 653; Ritter, Erdkunde, 325-330; Yule’s Marco Polo, Cordier’s ed., I, 92; Goodchild, Precious Stones, 284; Tavernier, Travels in India, II, xix: “Turquoise is only found in Persia .... in two mines, one near Nishapur, the other five days’ journey from it;” Lansdell, Russian Central-Asia, 515. )

39. Lapis lazuli.—The word in the text is sappheiros, and a natural inclination would be to assume this to be the same as our sapphire, which is also a product of India; but according to Pliny (XXXVII, 39) the stone known to the Romans as sapphire was an opaque blue stone with golden spots, which came from Media, that is, in a general way, from the country we call Persia. It was not suited for engraving because it was intersected with hard crystalline particles. This can be nothing but our lapis lazuli, which has been in demand from a very early time for ornament and also as a pigment, ultra-