Note 8 — Tale II.
Reading edition
Rice is the most ancient and most widespread object of Indian agriculture; it is only not cultivated in those districts where either the heat or the means of natural or artificial irrigation do not suffice for its production; and in easternmost islands of the Archipelago, where the sago-palm replaces it. (Ritter iv. 1, 800.) The name, coming from vrih, to grow, to spread (whence also vrihat, great), suggests, that it was regarded as the principal kind of corn. All the Greek writers on India mention that an intoxicating drink was made from rice, and the custom still prevails.