The Wood Is Of A Very
Brown Colour, And Full Of Veins; The Persians Employ It For Doors And
Window-Shutters, And When These Are Rubbed With Oil They Are Incomparably
Handsomer Than Our Walnut-Wood Joinery." (I. 526.) The Chinar-Wood Is Used
In Kashmir For Gunstocks.
The whole tenor of the passage seems to imply that some eminent
individual Chinar is meant.
The appellations given to it vary in the
different texts. In the G. T. it is styled in this passage, "The Arbre
Seule which the Christians call the Arbre Sec," whilst in ch. cci. of
the same (infra, Bk. IV. ch. v.) it is called "L'Arbre Sol, which in the
Book of Alexander is called L'Arbre Seche" Pauthier has here "L'Arbre
Solque, que nous appelons L'Arbre Sec," and in the later passage
"L'Arbre Soul, que le Livre Alexandre apelle Arbre Sec;" whilst
Ramusio has here "L'Albero del Sole che si chiama per i Cristiani
L'Albor Secco," and does not contain the later passage. So also I think
all the old Latin and French printed texts, which are more or less based
on Pipino's version, have "The Tree of the Sun, which the Latins call
the Dry Tree."
[G. Capus says (A travers le roy. de Tamerlan, p. 296) that he found at
Khodjakent, the remains of an enormous plane-tree or Chinar, which
measured no less than 48 metres (52 yards) in circumference at the base,
and 9 metres diameter inside the rotten trunk; a dozen tourists from
Tashkent one day feasted inside, and were all at ease.
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