The places where the calamus grew and the modes of preparing them are variously discussed by different ancient and modern writers. Some claim that the best reeds for pen purposes formerly grew near Memphis on the Nile, near Cnidus of Caria, in Asia Minor, and in Armenia. Those grown in Italy were estimated to have been of but poor quality. Chardin calls attention to a kind to be found, "in a large fen or tract of soggy land supplied with water by the river Helle, a place in Arabia formed by the united arms of the Euphrates and Tigris. They are cut in March, tied in bundles, laid six months in a manure heap, where they assume a beautiful color, mottled yellow and black." Tournefort saw them growing in the neighborhood of Teflis in Georgia. Miller describes the cane as "growing no higher than a man, the stem three or four lines in thickness and solid from one knot to another, excepting the central white pith." The incipient fermentation in the manure heap dries up the pith and hardens the cane. The pens were about the size of the largest swan's quills. They were cut and slit like a quill pen but with much larger nibs. In the far East the calamus is still used, the best being gathered in the month of March, near Aurac, on the Persian Gulf, and still prepared after the old method of immersing them for about six months in fermenting manure which coats them with a sort of dark varnish and the darker their color the more they are prized. The "brush" also holds its career of usefulness, more especially in China and Japan. The earliest examples of reed pen writing are the ancient rolls of papyrus which have been found buried with the Egyptian dead. Some of these old relics of antiquity are claimed to have been prepared fully twenty centuries or more before the Christian era. The "reed" pen for ink writing held almost undisputed sway until the sixth century after the Christian era, when the quill (penna) came into vogue. Reed pens preserved in excellent condition were found in the ruins of Herculaneum. "When he had finished, he dried the bamboo-pen on his hair, and replaced it behind his ear, saying, 'Yak pose' (That is well). 'Temou chu' (Rest in peace), we replied; and, after politely putting out our tongues, withdrew." Abbe Hue at Lha-Ssa. CHAPTER XXVI. INK UTENSILS (QUILL PEN STEEL PEN).