marchants conveyed through the world. Campion[1] is the mother citie of the countrey, inhabited by Idolaters, with some of the Arabian and Christian nations. ...
'Succuir also is, according to his report,[2] 'great and faire, beautified with many temples. Their Rheubarbe they would not bestow the paines to gather, but for the marchants, which from China, Persia, and other places, fetch it from them at a cheap price. Nor doe they in Tanguth use it for Phisick, as wee heere, but with other ingredients make perfumes thereof for their Idols; and in some places they burn it instead of other firing, and give it their horses to eat. They set more price by an hearbe which they call memhroni cini, medicinable for the eyes,[3] and another called Chiai Catai, growing in Catay, at Cacianfu,[4] admirable against very many diseases, an ounce whereof they esteem as good as a sack of Rheubarbe; whose description you may see at large, according to the relation and picture of the said Chaggi in Ramusius; for (to add that also) they have many painters, and one countrey inhabited onely by them. These Tanguthians are bearded as men in these parts, especially some time of the yeere.'
RHEUM PALMATUM L. THE GENUINE RHUBARB.
Although the accounts of the true Chinese Rhubarb, collected from various travellers and writers, agree wonderfully with one another as to its native land, station, gathering, preparation, and principal place of trade; all pointing unanimously to Kan-su, the country of the Tangutans, and north-westernmost province of China Proper; still the only Europeans who had hitherto seen the genuine
1 i.e. Kan-chau. Kan-su itself is a name compounded of the two cities of Kan-chau and Suh-chau (Yule's 'Marco Polo,' 2d. ed. i. 222.)
2 i.e. Hajji Mahomed's, the Persian traveller in Ramusio's 'Navigationi.'
3 An account of this drug mamira was given by the late Daniel Hanbury in the 'Pharmaceutical Journal,' some six or seven years ago.
4 Probably Kenjanfu, i.e. Singanfu, the capital of Shen-si, though tea does not grow there.
