ABSTRACT
The period primarily concerned is well documented for political history and for the development of religion, and the main features of the cultural and social institutions of both the autochthones and the foreign ruling classes are clear. A slave people would hardly introduce it as a specimen to remind them of home; the craving for a "refreshing sherbet" is hardly convincing, as India is well provided with other natural resources for such purposes. The island of Janjira was a Habshi possession from the early sixteenth century, although Habshis had long before that been prominent in the Muslim navies on the west coast of India. C. Birdwood suggests that it was either introduced by traders or carried across the Indian Ocean by currents and winds, as certainly happened with Kigelia pinnata. The baobab, Adansonia digitata, is commonly "not supposed to be a native", says A. K. Nairne although the family Bombaceae is well represented in India by other genera.
