And the nichts were long and mirk."
R. Kipling, Departmental Ditties, The Fall of Jock Gillespie.]
SISSOO, SHISHAM, s. Hind. sīsū, sīsūn, shīsham, Skt. śinśapā; Ar. sāsam, sāsim; the tree Dalbergia Sissoo, Roxb. (N.O. Leguminosae) and its wood. This is excellent, and valuable for construction, joinery, boat- and carriage-building, and furniture. It was the favourite wood for gun-carriages as long as the supply of large timber lasted. It is now much cultivated in the Punjab plantations. The tree is indigenous in the sub-Himālayan tracts; and believed to be so likewise in Beluchistan, Guzerat, and Central India. Another sp. of Dalbergia (D. latifolia) affords the [Black Wood] (q.v.) of S. and W. India. There can be little doubt that one or more of these species of Dalbergia afforded the sesamine wood spoken of in the Periplus, and in some old Arabic writers. A quotation under Black Wood shows that this wood was exported from India to Chaldaea in remote ages. Sissoo has continued in recent times to be exported to Egypt, (see Forskal, quoted by Royle, Hindu Medicine, 128). Royle notices the resemblance of the Biblical shittim wood to shīsham.
c. A.D. 80.—"... Thither they are wont to despatch from Barygaza (Broach) to both these ports of Persia, great vessels with brass, and timbers, and beams of teak (ξύλων σαγαλίνων καὶ δοκῶν) ... and logs of shīsham (φαλάγγων σασαμίνων)...."—Periplus, Maris Erythr., cap. 36.
c. 545.—"These again are passed on from Sielediba to the marts on this side, such as Malé, where the pepper is grown, and Kalliana, whence are exported brass, and shīsham logs (σησαμίνα ξύλα), and other wares."—Cosmas, lib. xi.
? before 1200.—
"There are the wolf and the parrot, and the peacock, and the dove,
And the plant of Zinj, and al-sāsim, and pepper...."
Verses on India by Abu'l-ḍhal'i, the Sindi,
quoted by Kazvīnī, in Gildemeister, p. 218.