- The notice of pepper here is hard to explain. But Hiuen Tsang
also speaks of Indian pepper and incense (see next chapter) as grown at
'Ochali which seems to be some place on the northern border of Guzerat
(II. 161).
Marsden, in regard to the cotton, supposes here some confused introduction
of the silk-cotton tree (Bombax or Salmalia, the Semal of Hindustan),
but the description would be entirely inapplicable to that great forest
tree. It is remarkable that nearly the same statement with regard to
Guzerat occurs in Rashiduddin's sketch of India, as translated in Sir H.
Elliot's History of India (ed. by Professor Dowson, I. 67): "Grapes
are produced twice during the year, and the strength of the soil is such
that cotton-plants grow like willows and plane-trees, and yield produce
ten years running." An author of later date, from whom extracts are given
in the same work, viz., Mahommed Masum in his History of Sind,
describing the wonders of Siwi, says: "In Korzamin and Chhatur, which are
districts of Siwi, cotton-plants grow as large as trees, insomuch that men
pick the cotton mounted" (p. 237).
These would appear to have been plants of the species of true cotton
called by Royle Gossipium arboreum and sometimes termed G. religiosum,
from its being often grown in South India near temples or abodes of
devotees; though the latter name has been applied also to the nankeen
cotton.
