Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.395

c10.395

In Prof. Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies (i. 578), it is stated in reference to ancient Assyria: "Fruits . . . were highly prized; amongst those of most repute were pomegranates, grapes, citrons, and apparently pine-apples." A foot-note adds: "The representation is so exact that I can hardly doubt the pine-apple being intended. Mr Layard expresses himself on this point with some hesitation (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 338)." The cut given is something like the conventional figure of a pine-apple, though it seems to us by no means very exact as such. Again, in Winter Jones's tr. of Conti (c. 1430) in India in the 15th Century, the traveller, speaking of a place called Panconia (read Pauconia apparently Pegu) is made to say: “they have pine-apples, oranges, chestnuts, melons, but small and green, white sandal-wood and camphor.”