19) can hardly have been anything else than
Indian Steel, because named with cassia and calamus.
[3] Literally rendered by Mr. Redhouse: "The Indians do well the combining
of mixtures of the chemicals with which they (smelt and) cast the soft
iron, and it becomes Indian (steel), being referred to India (in
this expression)."
[4] In Richardson's Pers. Dict., by Johnson, we have a word Rohan,
Rohina (and other forms). "The finest Indian steel, of which the most
excellent swords are made; also the swords made of that steel."
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF THE CITY OF CAMADI AND ITS RUINS; ALSO TOUCHING THE CARAUNA ROBBERS.
After you have ridden down hill those two days, you find yourself in a
vast plain, and at the beginning thereof there is a city called CAMADI,
which formerly was a great and noble place, but now is of little
consequence, for the Tartars in their incursions have several times
ravaged it. The plain whereof I speak is a very hot region; and the
province that we now enter is called REOBARLES.
The fruits of the country are dates, pistachioes, and apples of Paradise,
with others of the like not found in our cold climate. [There are vast
numbers of turtledoves, attracted by the abundance of fruits, but the
Saracens never take them, for they hold them in abomination.] And on this
plain there is a kind of bird called francolin, but different from the
francolin of other countries, for their colour is a mixture of black and
white, and the feet and beak are vermilion colour.[NOTE 1]