According to the statement of Megasthenes--which for the land of the Ganges is quite correct--there are two harvests in India. For the winter sowing rice and barley were used, and other kinds of fruit unknown to the Greeks; for the summer sowing, sesame, rice, and bosmoron; while during the rainy season flax and millet were planted, so that in India want and famine were unknown.[44] Equally luxuriant in growth were the herbs and reeds. There was a reed there which produced honey without bees (the sugar-cane); and in Southern India cinnamon, nard, and the rest of the spices grew as well as in Arabia and Ethiopia.[45] The Greeks did not know that the cinnamon is a native of India only, and that the bark came to them from that country, though it came through Arabia. The marshes of India were filled with roots, wholesome or deadly; the trees there grew to a larger size than elsewhere; some were so tall that an arrow could not be shot over them, and the leaves were as large as shields. There were other trees there of which the trunks could not be spanned by five men, and the branches, as though bent, grew downwards till they touched the earth, and then, springing up anew, formed fresh trunks, to send out other arches, so that from one tree was formed a grove, not unlike a tent supported by many poles. Fifty or even 400 horsemen could take their mid-day rest under such a tree. Nearchus even goes so far as to say that there were trees of this kind under which there was room for 10,000 men.[46] There were also trees in India which produced intoxicating fruits. This description of the Indian fig tree and the statements about the shelter its branches afford are not exaggerated. By intoxicating fruits the coco and fan-palms are, no doubt, meant, from which palm-wine is made.[47]