HISTORICAL DATA WANTING. 261 
IMPROBABILITY OF SPANISH INTRODUCTION. 
The existence of the banana in prehistoric America has been obscured 
by the record of an introduction from the Canary Islands to Santo 
Domingo in 1516; but neither history nor tradition has given any 
intimation that cocoanuts were brought by the Spaniards from the Old 
World to the New. Moreover, there are several other facts which 
seem to preclude belief in such a transfer. The banana is supposed 
to have reached the Canaries from West Africa; but the cocoanut has 
never been found to thrive in the Canaries, nor in any part of the 
Mediterranean region, and it is not supposed to have existed in West 
Africa in the early years of the sixteenth century, but is believed to 
have been carried thither, subsequently, from America. It is also well 
known that the papal division of the ‘* Indies” between the Portuguese 
and the Spanish gave the latter no access to the Indian Ocean by way 
of the Cape of Good Hope. Thus it would seem that if the Spaniards 
learned about cocoanuts, and obtained them to plant in their new pos- 
sessions, it must have been from their Portuguese rivals. Such an 
event is highly improbable, and if it had occurred would doubtless 
have been made a subject of historical record and comment. 
But even though arrangements might have been made for securing 
nuts in this manner, it would have been very difficult or impossible to 
keep them alive long enough to survive the voyage from the East 
Indies to the West. In spite of its size the cocoanut is a rather deli- 
cate and short-lived seed, and it is very improbable that at that time 
any Europeans had the knowledge and skill necessary to select the 
nuts and give them proper care on the journey. 
If the cocoanut had been established in America in spite of these 
difficulties, it could only have been because somebody placed a high 
ralue upon it. The success of the effort would have been a matter of 
much self-congratulation by the Spaniards, and would scarcely have 
escaped record by some of the numerous early chroniclers of New 
Spain, several of whom show a lively interest in recounting the impor- 
tation of European plants. ‘To judge from their reports to their soy- 
ereigns, the early agents of the Spanish crown in America would have 
lost no opportunity of realizing full yalue for any special service of 
this kind, 
Pickering was apparently the originator! of the statement, repeated 
in other compilations, that cocoanuts ** were seen by Columbus on his 
fourth voyage, in Central America.” Unfortunately, it seems to be 
impossible to verify this interesting information. A careful reading 
of the Churchill version of the life of Columbus by his son Ferdinand, 
which is indicated by Pickering as the authority for his statement, 
fails to reveal any direct indication of the cocoanut. Although the 
existence of seven kinds of palms is noted, they are not described in 
‘Chronological History of Plants, p. 428 (1879). 
