Note 1885 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN (continued 2)

So spelled in the Turkī text and also in two good MSS. of the Pers. trs. I.O. 217 and 218, but by Abū’l-faẓl amal-bīt. Both P. bīd and P. bīt mean willow and cane (ratan), so that amal-bīd (bīt) can mean acid-willow and acid-cane. But as Bābur is writing of a fruit like an orange, the cane that bears an acid fruit, Calamus rotang, can be left aside in favour of Citrus medica acidissima. Of this fruit the solvent property Bābur mentions, as well as the commonly-known service in cleansing metal, link it, by these uses, with the willow and suggest a ground for understanding, as Erskine did, that amal-bīd meant acid-willow; for willow-wood is used to rub rust off metal.