Bah! What grass, what grain, what water!
Bah! Bah!
['If there be a Paradise on the face of the Earth,
This is it! This is it! This is it!'"] - (I. 209.)
(See Fraser, 405, 432-433, 434, 436.)
With reference to the dried melons of Shibrgan, Quatremere cites a history
of Herat, which speaks of them almost in Polo's words. Ibn Batuta gives a
like account of the melons of Kharizm: "The surprising thing about these
melons is the way the people have of slicing them, drying them in the sun,
and then packing them in baskets, just as Malaga figs are treated in our
part of the world. In this state they are sent to the remotest parts of
India and China. There is no dried fruit so delicious, and all the while I
lived at Delhi, when the travelling dealers came in, I never missed
sending for these dried strips of melon." (Q. R. 169; I. B. III. 15.)
Here, in the 14th century, we seem to recognise the Afghan dealers
arriving in the cities of Hindustan with their annual camel-loads of dried
fruits, just as we have seen them in our own day.
[1] The oldest form of the name is Asapuragan, which Rawlinson thinks
traceable to its being an ancient seat of the Asa or Asagartii.
(J. R. A. S. XI.
