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2. The most important article by which the Chinese became famously known in ancient times, of course, was silk. This subject is so extensive, and has so frequently been treated in special monographs, that it does not require recapitulation in this place. I shall only recall the fact that the Chinese silk materials, after traversing Central Asia, reached the Iranian Parthians, who acted as mediators in this trade with the anterior Orient.<ref>Hirth, Chinesische Studien, p. 10.</ref> It is assumed that the introduction of sericulture into Persia, especially into Gilan, where it still flourishes, falls in the latter part of the Sasanian epoch. It is very probable that the acquaintance of the Khotanese with the rearing of silkworms, introduced by a Chinese princess in A.D. 419, gave the impetus to a further growth of this new industry in a western direction, gradually spreading to Yarkand, Fergana, and Persia.<ref>Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde, Vol. I, p. 256.</ref> Chinese brocade (''dībā-i čīn'') is frequently mentioned by FirdausI as playing a prominent part in Persian decorations.<ref>J. J. Modi, Asiatic Papers, p. 254 (Bombay, 1905).</ref> He also speaks of a very fine and decorated Chinese silk under the name ''parniyān'', corresponding to Middle Persian ''parnīkān''.<ref>Hübschmann, Persische Studien, p. 242.</ref> Iranian has a peculiar word for "silk," not yet satisfactorily explained: Pahlavi *aprēšum, *aparēšum; New Persian ''abrēšum, abrēšam '' (Arme-

nian, loan-word from Persian, ''aprišum''); hence Arabic ''ibarīsam'' or ''ibrīsam''; Pamir dialects ''waršum'', ''waršüm'', Šugni ''wrežōm'', etc.; Afghan ''wrēšam''.<ref>Hübschmann, Arm. Gram., p. 107; Horn, Neupers. Etymologie, No. 65. The derivation from Sanskrit ''kṣauma'' is surely wrong. Bulgar ''ibrišim'', Rumanian ''ibrišin'', are likewise connected with the Iranian series.</ref> Certain it is that we have here a type not related to any Chinese word for "silk." In this connection I wish to register my utter disbelief in the traditional opinion, inaugurated by Klaproth, that Greek ''ser'' ("silk-worm" ; hence Seres, Serica) should be connected with Mongol ''širgek'' and Manchu ''sirge'' ("silk"), the latter with Chinese ''se'' <>.<ref>Cf. Klaproth, Conjecture sur l'origine du nom de la soie chez les anciens (''Journal asiatique'', Vol. I, 1822, pp. 243-245, with additions by Abel-Rémusat, 245-247); Asia polyglotta, p. 341; and Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, Vol. Ill, p. 264. Klaproth's opinion has been generally, but thoughtlessly, accepted (Hirth, ''op. cit.'', p, 217; F. v. Richthofen, China, Vol. I, p. 443; Schrader, Reallexikon, p. 757). Pelliot (''T'oung Pao'', 1912, p. 741), I believe, was the first to point out that Chinese ''se'' was never possessed of a final consonant.</ref> My reasons for rejecting this theory may be stated as briefly as possible. I do not see how a Greek word can be explained from Mongol or Manchu, — languages which we merely know in their most recent forms, Mongol from the thirteenth and Manchu from the sixteenth century. Neither the Greek nor the Mongol-Manchu word can be correlated with Chinese ''se''. The latter was never provided with a final consonant. Klaproth resorted to the hypothesis that in ancient dialects of China along the borders of the empire a final ''r'' might (''peut-être'') have existed. This, however, was assuredly not the case. We know that the termination '''r’r'' <>, so frequently associated with nouns in Pekingese, is of comparatively recent origin, and not older than the Yüan period (thirteenth century) ; the beginnings of this usage may go back to the end of the twelfth or even to the ninth century.<ref>See my note in ''T'oung Pao'', 1916, p. 77; and H. Maspero, Sur quelques textes anciens de chinois parlé, p. 12. Maspero encountered the word ''mao'r'' ("cat") in a text of the ninth century. It hardly makes any great difference whether we conceive '''r’r'' as a diminutive or as a suffix. Originally it may have had the force of a diminutive, and have gradually developed into a pure suffix. Cf. also P. Schmidt, K istorii kitaiskago razgovornago yazyka, in Sbornik stat'ei professorov, p. 19 (Vladivostok, 1917).</ref> At any rate, it did not exist in ancient times when the Greek ''ser'' came into being. Moreover, this suffix '''r’r'' is not used arbitrarily : it joins certain words, while others take the suffix tse <>, and others again do not allow any suffix. The word ''se'', however, has never been amalgamated with '''r’r''. In all probability, its ancient phonetic value was *si, sa. It is thus phonetically impossible to derive from it the Mongol-Manchu word or Korean ''sir'', added by Abel-Rémusat. I do not deny that this series may have its root in a Chinese word, but its parentage cannot be traced to ''se''. I do

("yellow plum").1 <ref>In the Pamir languages we meet a common name for the apricot, Minjan ''čerí'', Waxī ''čiwān'' or ''čoān'' (but Sariqolī ''nōš'', Šigni ''naž''). The same type occurs in the Dardu languages (''jui'' or ''ji'' for the tree, ''jarote'' or ''jorote'' for the fruit, and ''juru'' for the ripe fruit) and in Kāçmīrī (''tser, tser-kul'') ; further, in West-Tibetan ''ču-li'' or ''čo-li'', Balti ''su-ri'', Kanaurī ''čul'' (other Tibetan words for "apricot" are ''k'am-bu, a-šu'', and ''ša-rag'', the last-named being dried apricots with little pulp and almost as hard as a stone). Klaproth (''Journal asiatique'', Vol. II, 1823, p. 159) has recorded in Bukhāra a word for the apricot in the form ''tserduli''. It is not easy to determine how this type has migrated. Tomaschek (Pamir-Dialekte, p. 791) is inclined to think that originally it might have been Tibetan, as Baltistan furnishes the best apricots. For my part, I have derived the Tibetan from the Pamir languages (''T'oung Pao'', 1916, p. 82). The word is decidedly not Tibetan; and as to its origin, I should hesitate only between the Pamir and Dardu languages.</ref> Both fruits are referred to in Pahlavi literature (above, pp. 192, 193).

As to the transplantation of the Chinese peach into India, we have an interesting bit of information in the memoirs of the Chinese pilgrim Hiian TsahHüan Tsaṅ.2 <ref>''Ta T'aṅ Si yü ki'', Ch. 4, p. 5.</ref> At the time of the great Indo-Scythian king KaniskaKaniṣka, whose fame spread all over the neighboring countries, the tribes west of the Yellow River (Ho-si in Kan-su) dreaded his power, and sent hostages to him. Kaniska Kaniṣka treated them with marked attention, and assigned to them special mansions and guards of honor. The country where the hostages resided in the winter received the name Cinabhukti Cīnabhukti ("China allotment," in the eastern PanjabPanjāb). In this kingdom and throughout India there existed neither pear nor peach. These were planted by the hostages. The peach therefore was called clnani ''cīnanī'' ("Chinese fruit"); and the pear, clnarajaputra ''cīnarājaputra'' ("crown-prince of China"). These names are still prevalent. 3 <ref>There are a few other Indian names of products formed with "China": ''cīnapiṣṭa'' ("minium"), ''cīnaka'' ("Panicum miliaceum, fennel, a kind of camphor"), ''cīnakarpūra'' ("a kind of camphor"), ''cīnavaṅga'' ("lead").</ref> Although Hiian Tsan Hüan Tsaṅ recorded in aA.dD. 630 an oral tradition overheard by him in India, and relative to a time lying back over half a millennium, his well-tested trustworthiness cannot be doubted in this case: the story thus existed in India, and may indeed be traceable to an event that took place under the reign of KaniskaKaniṣka, the exact date of which is still controversial.4 <ref>Cf. V. A. Smith, Early History of India, 3d ed., p. 263 (I do not believe with Smith that "the territory of the ruler to whose family the hostages belonged seems to have been not very distant from Kashgar"; the Chinese term Ho-si, at the time of the Han, comprised the present province of Kan-su from Lan-čou to An-si); T. Watters, On Yüan Chwang's Travels, Vol. I, pp. 292-293 (his comments on the story of the peach miss the mark, and his notes on the name Cīna are erroneous; see also Pelliot, ''Bull. de l'Ecole franqaise'', Vol. V, p. 457).</ref> There are mainly two reasons which prompt me to accept Hiian TsahHüan Tsaṅ's account. From a botanical point of view, the peach is not a native of India. It occurs there only

in a cultivated state, and does not even succeed well, the fruit being mediocre and acid. 1 There is no ancient Sanskrit name for the tree; nor does it play any rdle rôle in the folk-lore of India, as it does in China. Further, as regards the time of the introduction, whether the reign of ''Kaniska '' be placed in the first century before or after our era, it is singularly synchronous with the transplantation of the tree into western Asia.

5. As indicated by the Persian name ''dār-čīnī'' or ''dār-čīn'' ("Chinese wood" or "bark"; Arabic ''dār ṣīnī''), cinnamon was obtained by the Persians and Arabs from China.2 <ref>Leclerc, Traité des simples, Vol. II, pp. 68, 272. The loan-word ''daričenik'' in Armenian proves that the word was known in Middle Persian (*dār-i čēnik) ; cf. Hubschmann, Armen. Gram., p. 137.</ref> Ibn Khordādzbeh, who wrote between a.d. 844 and 848, is the first Arabic author who enumerates cinnamon among the products exported from China.3 <ref>G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs à l'Extrême-Orient, p. 31.</ref> The Chinese export cannot have assumed large dimensions: it is not alluded to in Chinese records, Čao Žu-kwa is reticent about it.4 <ref>Schoff (Periplus, p. 83) asserts that between the third and sixth centuries there was an active sea-trade in this article in Chinese ships from China to Persia. No reference is given. I wonder from what source this is derived.</ref> Ceylon was always the main seat of cinnamon production, and the tree (''Cinnamomum zeylanicum'') is a native of the Ceylon forests.5 <ref>De Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 146; Watt, Commercial Products of India, p. 313.</ref> The bark of this tree is also called ''dar-čīnī''. It is well known that cassia and cinnamon are mentioned by classical authors, and have given rise to many sensational speculations as to the origin of the cinnamon of the ancients. Herodotus6 Herodotus<ref>III, 107, 111.</ref> places cinnamon in Arabia, and tells a wondrous story as to how it is gathered. Theophrastus7 Theophrastus<ref>Hist. plant., IX. IV, 2.</ref> seeks the home of cassia and cinnamomum, together with frankincense and myrrh, in the Arabian peninsula about Saba, Hadramyt, Kitibaina, and Mamali. Strabo8 Strabo<ref>XV. IV, 19; XVI. IV, 25; XV. I, 22.</ref> locates it in the land of the Sabæans, in Arabia, also in Ethiopia and southern India; finally he has a "cinnamon-bearing country" at the end of the habitable countries of the south, on the shore of the Indian ocean.9 Pliny10 <ref>I, IV, 2.</ref> Pliny<ref>XII, 42.</ref> has cinnamomum or cinnamum grow in the country of the Ethiopians, and it is carried over sea on rafts by the Troglodytae.

The descriptions given of cinnamon and cassia by Theophrastus1 Theophrastus<ref>Hist. plant., IX. V, 1-3.</ref> show that the ancients did not exactly agree on the identity of these plants, and Theophrastus himself speaks from hearsay ("In regard to cinnamon and cassia they say the following: both are shrubs, it is said, and not of large size... Such is the account given by some. Others say that cinnamon is shrubby or rather like an under-brush, and that there are two kinds, one black, the other white"). The difference between cinnamon and cassia seems to have been that the latter possessed stouter branches, was very fibrous, and difficult to strip off the bark. This bark was used; it was bitter, and had a pungent odor.2<ref>Theophrastus, IX. V, 3.</ref>

Certain it is that the two words are of Semitic origin.3 <ref>Greek ''κασία'' is derived from Hebrew ''qeṣî'ā'', perhaps related to Assyrian ''kasu'', ''kasiya'' (Pognon, Journal asiatique, 1917, I, p. 400). Greek ''kinnamomon'' is traced to Hebrew ''qinnamōn'' (Exodus, XXX, 23).</ref> The fact that there is no cinnamon in Arabia and Ethiopia was already known to Garcia da Orta.4 <ref>Markham, Colloquies, pp. 119-120.</ref> An unfortunate attempt has been made to trace the cinnamon of the ancients to the Chinese.5 <ref>Thus also Flückiger and Hanbury (Pharmacographia, p. 520), whose argumentation is not sound, as it lacks all sense of chronology. The Persian term ''dar-čīnī'', for instance, is strictly of mediaeval origin, and cannot be invoked as evidence for the supposition that cinnamon was exported from China many centuries before Christ.</ref> This theory has thus been formulated by Muss-Arnolt:6 <ref>''Transactions Am. Phil. Assoc.'', Vol. XXIII, 1892, p. 115.</ref> "This spice was imported by Phoenician merchants from Egypt, where it is called ''khisi-t''. The Egyptians, again, brought it from the land of Punt, to which it was imported from Japan, where we have it under the form ''kei-chi'' ('branch of the cinnamon-tree'), or better ''kei-shin'' ('heart of the cinnamon') [read ''sin'', *sim]. The Japanese itself is again borrowed from the Chinese ''kei-ši'' [?]. The -''t'' in the Egyptian represents the feminine suffix." As may be seen from O. Schrader,7 <ref>Reallexikon, p. 989.</ref> this strange hypothesis was first put forward in 1883 by C. Schumann. Schrader himself feels somewhat sceptic about it, and regards the appearance of Chinese merchandise on the markets of Egypt at such an early date as hardly probable. From a sinological viewpoint, this speculation must be wholly rejected, both in its linguistic and its historical bearings. Japan was not in existence in 1500 B.C., when cinnamon-wood of the country Punt is spoken of in the Egyptian inscriptions; and China was then a small agrarian inland community restricted to the northern part of the present empire, and

<references/> 1 Hist, plant., IX. V, 1-3. 2 Theophrastus, IX. V, 3. 3 Greek ''κασία'' is derived from Hebrew ''qeṣî'ā'', perhaps related to Assyrian ''kasu'', ''kasiya'' (Pognon, Journal asiatique, 1917, I, p. 400). Greek ''kinnamomon'' is traced to Hebrew ''qinnamōn'' (Exodus, XXX, 23). 4 Markham, Colloquies, pp. 119-120. 5 Thus also Flückiger and Hanbury (Pharmacographia, p. 520), whose argumentation is not sound, as it lacks all sense of chronology. The Persian term ''dar-čīnī'', for instance, is strictly of mediaeval origin, and cannot be invoked as evidence for the supposition that cinnamon was exported from China many centuries before Christ. 6 ''Transactions Am. Phil. Assoc.'', Vol. XXIII, 1892, p. 115. 7 Reallexikon, p. 989.

not acquainted with any ''Cassia '' trees of the south. Certainly there was no Chinese navigation and sea-trade at that time. The Chinese word ''kwei ££ '' <> (*kwai, kwi) occurs at an early date, but it is a generic term for ''Lauraceae''; and there are about thirteen species of ''Cassia'', and about sixteen species of ''Cinnamomum'', in China. The essential point is that the ancient texts maintain silence as to cinnamon; that is, the product from the bark of the tree. ''Cinnamomum cassia '' is a native of KwahKwaṅ-si, KwahtuhKwaṅtuṅ, and Indo-China; and the Chinese made its first acquaintance under the Han, when they began to colonize and to absorb southern China. The first description of this species is contained in the ''Nan fan faṅ ts'ao mu cwan čwaṅ'' of the third century.1 <ref>The more important texts relative to the subject are accessible in Bretschneider, Bot. Sin., pt. III, No. 303.</ref> This work speaks of large forests of this tree covering the mountains of KwahKwaṅ-tuhtuṅ, and of its cultivation in gardens of Kiao-ci či (Tonking). It was not the Chinese, but non-Chinese peoples of Indo-China, who first brought the tree into cultivation, which, like all other southern cultivations, was simply adopted by the conquering Chinese. The medicinal employment of the bark {(''kwei p'i t£ $£'' <>) is first mentioned by T'ao HuhHuṅ-kih kiṅ (aA.dD. 451-536), and probably was not known much earlier. It must be positively denied, however, that the Chinese or any nation of Indo-China had any share in the trade which brought cinnamon to the Semites, Egyptians, or Greeks jat at the time of Herodotus or earlier. The earliest date we may assume £or for any navigation from the coasts of Indo-China into the Indian Ocean \s is the second century bB.cC.<ref>Cf. Pelliot, ''T'oung Pao'', 1912, pp. 457-461. 2 </ref> The solution of the cinnamon problem of the ancients seems simpler to me than to my predecessors. First, there is no valid reason to assume that what our modern botany understands by ''Cassia '' and ''Cinnamomum '' must be strictly identical with the products so named by the ancients. Several different species are evidently involved. It is perfectly conceivable that in ancient times there was a fragrant bark supplied by a certain tree of Ethiopia or Arabia or both, which is either extinct or unknown to us, or, as F6e Fée inclines to think, a species of ''Amyris''. It is further legitimate to conclude, without forcing the evidence, that the greater part of the cinnamon supply came from Ceylon and India, 3 <ref>The Malabar cinnamon is mentioned by Marco Polo (Yule's ed., Vol. II, p. 389) and others.</ref> India being expressly included by Strabo. This, at least,' is infinitely more reasonable than acquiescing in the wild fantasies of a Schumann or Muss-Arnolt, who lack the most elementary knowledge of East-Asiatic history.

7. Abu Mansur distinguishes under the Arabic name zanjabīl three kinds of ginger (product of ''Amomum zingiber'', or ''Zingiber officinale''),— Chinese, Zanzibar, and Melinawi or Zurunbāj, the best being the Chinese.<ref>Achundow, Abu Mansur, p. 76.</ref> According to Steingass,<ref>Persian Dictionary, p. 113.</ref> Persian ''anqala'' denotes "a kind of China ginger."<ref>Concerning ginger among the Arabs, cf. Leclerc, Traité des simples, Vol. II, p. 217 ; and regarding its preparation, see G. Ferrand, Textes relatifs à l'Extreme-Orient, p. 609.</ref> The Persian word (likewise in Arabic) demonstrates that the product was received from India : compare Prakrit ''singabēra'', Sanskrit ''çṛṅgavera '' (of recent origin),<ref>Cf. the discussion of E. Hultzsch and F. W. Thomas in ''Journal Roy. As. Soc.'', 1912, pp. 475, 1093. See also Yule, Hobson-Jobson, p. 374.</ref> Old Arabic ''zangabīl'', Pahlavi ''šangavīr'', New Persian ''šankalīl'', Arabic-Persian ''zanjabīl'', Armenian ''sṅrvēl'' or ''snkrvil'' (from *singivēl), Greek ''ζιγγίβερις'', Latin ''zingiberi'' ; Madagasy šakavīru (Indian loan-word).<ref>The curious word for "ginger" in Kuča or Tokharian B, ''tváṅkaro'' (S. Lévi, ''Journal asiatique'', 1911, II, pp. 124, 137), is not yet explained.</ref>