Sugar 377 



the Christians of the city Gundes&pur, which was in connection with 

 India and cultivated Indian medicine, should have propagated the 

 cane and promoted the sugar-industry. This is no more than an in- 

 genious speculation, which, however, is not substantiated by any 

 documents. The facts in the case are merely, that according to the 

 Armenian historian Moses of Khorene, who wrote in the second half 

 of the fifth century, sugar-cane was cultivated in Elymais near GundS- 

 sapur, and that later Arabic writers, like Ibn Haukal, MuqaddasI, 

 and Yaqut, mention the cultivation of the cane and the manufacture 

 of sugar in certain parts of Persia. The above Chinese notice is of some 

 importance in showing that sugar was known under the Sasanians in 

 the sixth century. The Arabs, as is well known, took a profound inter- 

 est in the sugar-industry after the conquest of Persia (a.d. 640), and 

 disseminated the cane to Palestine, Syria, Egypt, etc. The Chinese 

 owe nothing to the Persians as regards the technique of sugar-pro- 

 duction. In a.d. 647 the Emperor T'ai Tsun was anxious to learn its 

 secrets, and sent a mission to Magadha in India to study there the 

 process of boiling sugar, and this method was adopted by the sugar- 

 cane growers of Yan-eou. The color and taste of this product then were 

 superior to that of India. 1 The art of refining sugar was taught the 

 Chinese as late as the Mongol period by men from Cairo. 2 



1 T'an hut yao, Ch. ioo, p. 21. 



2 Yule, Marco Polo, Vol. II, pp. 226, 230. The latest writer on the subject of 

 sugar in Persia is P. Schwarz (Der Islam, Vol. VI, 191 5, pp. 269-279), whose 

 researches are restricted to the province of Ahwaz. In opposition to C. Ritter, who 

 regarded Slraf on the Persian Gulf as the place whither the sugar-cane was first 

 transplanted from India, he assigns this rdle to Hormuz; the first mention of refined 

 sugar he finds in an Arabic poet of the seventh century. Lippmann's work is not 

 known to him. 



