12. Κάρπασος—Karpasus (Sans. kârpâsa'; Heb. karpas,) Gossypium arboreum, fine muslin—a product of Ariakê ([41]). “How this word found its way into Italy, and became the Latin carbasus, fine linen, is surprising, when it is not found in the Greek language. The Καρπασιον λινον of Pausanias (in Atticis), of which the wick was formed for the lamp of Pallas, is asbestos, so called from Karpasos, a city of Crete—Salmas. Plin. Exercit. p. 178. Conf. Q. Curtius viii. 9:—‘Carbaso Indi corpora usque ad pedes velant, corumque rex lecticâ margaritis circumpendentibus recumbit distinctis auro et purpurâ carbasis quâ indutus est.’” Vincent II. 699.
13. Κασσία or Κασία (Sans. kuta, Heb. kiddah and keziah). Exported from Tabai ([12]); a coarse kind exported from Malaô and Moundou (8, 9); a vast quantity exported from Mossulon and Opônê (10, 13).
“This spice,” says Vincent, “is mentioned frequently in the Periplûs, and with various additions, intended to specify the different sorts, properties, or appearances of the commodity. It is a species of cinnamon, and manifestly the same as what we call cinnamon at this day; but different from that of the Greeks and Romans, which was not a bark, nor rolled up into pipes, like ours. Theirs was the tender shoot of the same plant, and of much higher value.” “If our cinnamon,” he adds, “is the ancient casia, our casia again is an inferior sort of cinnamon.” Pliny (xii. 19) states that the cassia is of a larger size than the cinnamon, and has a thin rind rather than a bark, and that its value consists in being hollowed out. Dioskoridês mentions cassia as a product of Arabia, but this is a mistake, Arabian cassia having been an import from India. Herodotos (iii.) had made the same mistake, saying that cassia grew in Arabia, but that cinnamon was brought thither by birds from the country where Bacchus was born (India). The cassia shrub is a sort of laurel. There are ten kinds of cassia specified in the Periplûs.[7] Cf. Lassen, Ind. Alt. I. 279, 283; Salmas. Plin. Exercit. p. 1304; Galen, de Antidotis, bk. i.
14. Κιννάβαρι Ἰνδικòν—Dragon’s-blood, damu’l akhawein of the Arabs, a gum distilled from Pterocarpus Draco, a leguminous tree[8] in the island of Dioskoridês or Sokotra ([30]). Cinnabar, with which this was confounded, is the red sulphuret of mercury. Pliny (lib. xxix. c. 8) distinguishes it as ‘Indian cinnabar.’ Dragon’s-blood is one of the concrete balsams, the produce of Calamus Draco, a species of rattan palm of the Eastern Archipelago, [of Pterocarpus Draco, allied to the Indian Kino tree or Pt. marsupium of South India, and of Dracæna Draco, a liliaceous tree of Madeira and the Canary Islands].
15. Κόστος (Sansk. kushṭa, Mar. choka, Guj. kaṭha and pushkara mûla,)—Kostus. Exported from Barbarikon, a mart on the Indus ([39]), and from Barugaza, which procured it from Kâbul through Proklaïs, &c. This was considered the best of aromatic roots, as nard or spikenard was the best of aromatic plants. Pliny (xii. 25) describes this root as hot to the taste and of consummate fragrance, noting that it was found at the head of Patalênê, where the Indus bifurcates to form the Delta, and that it was of two sorts, black and white, black being of an inferior quality. Lassen states that two kinds are found in India—one in Multân, and the other in Kâbul and Kâśmîr. “The Costus of the ancients is still exported from Western India, as well as from Calcutta to China, under the name of Putchok, to be burnt as an incense in Chinese temples. Its identity has been ascertained in our own days by Drs. Royle and Falconer as the root of a plant which they called Aucklandia Costus.... Alexander Hamilton, at the beginning of last century, calls it ligna dulcis (sic), and speaks of it as an export from Sind, as did the author of the Periplûs 1600 years earlier.” Yule’s Marco Polo, vol. II. p. 388.
16. Κρόκος—Crocus, Saffron. (Sans. kaśmîraja, Guj. kesir, Pers. zafrân.) Exported from Egypt to Mouza ([24]) and to Kanê ([28]).
17. Κύπερος—Cyprus. Exported from Egypt to Mouza ([24]). It is an aromatic rush used in medicine (Pliny xxi. 18). Herodotos (iv. 71) describes it as an aromatic plant used by the Skythians for embalming. Κύπερος is probably Ionic for Κύπειρος—Κύπειρος ἰνδικὸς of Dioskoridês, and Cypria herba indica of Pliny.—Perhaps Turmeric, Curcuma longa, or Galingal possibly.
18. Λέντια, (Lat. lintea)—Linen. Exported from Egypt to Adouli ([6]).
19. Λίβανος (Heb. lebonah, Arab. luban, Sans. śrîvâsa)—Frankincense. Peratic or Libyan frankincense exported from the Barbarine markets—Tabai ([12]), Mossulon ([10]), Malaô and Moundou, in small quantities (8, 9); produced in great abundance and of the best quality at Akannai ([11]); Arabian frankincense exported from Kanê ([28]). A magazine for frankincense on the Sakhalitic Gulf near Cape Suagros ([30]). Moskha, the port whence it was shipped for Kanê and India ([32]) and Indo-Skythia ([39]).
Regarding this important product Yule thus writes:—“The coast of Hadhramaut is the true and ancient Χώρα λιβανοφόρος or λιβανωτοφόρος, indicated or described under those names by Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pseudo-Arrian, and other classical writers, i.e. the country producing the fragrant gum-resin called by the Hebrews Lebonah, by the Arabs Luban and Kundur, by the Greeks Libanos, by the Romans Thus, in mediæval Latin Olibanum (probably the Arabic al-luban, but popularly interpreted as oleum Libani), and in English frankincense, i.e, I apprehend, ‘genuine incense’ or ‘incense proper.’[9] It is still produced in this region and exported from it, but the larger part of that which enters the markets of the world is exported from the roadsteads of the opposite Sumâlî coast. Frankincense when it first exudes is milky white; whence the name white incense by which Polo speaks of it, and the Arabic name luban apparently refers to milk. The elder Niebuhr, who travelled in Arabia, depreciated the Libanos of Arabia, representing it as greatly inferior to that brought from India, called Benzoin. He adds that the plant which produces it is not native, but originally from Abyssinia.”—Marco Polo, vol. II. p. 443, &c.