BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS, F.G.S., &C. 789 



He admits, on the authority of Oviedo,* its introduction by 

 Father Thomas of BerLingas from the Canaries into San Do- 

 mingo in 1516, whence it was introduced into other islands and 

 the mainland.! He recognises the a.bsence of any mention of the 

 banana in the accounts of Columbus, Alouzo Negro, Pinzon, 

 Vespuzzi and Cortez. The silence of Hernandez who lived half a 

 century after Oviedo, astonishes him, and appears to him a 

 remarkable carelessness ; "for," he says,J "it is a constant tra- 

 dition in Mexico, and on the whole of the mainland, that the 

 Flantano arton and the dommico were cultivated long before the 

 Spanish conquest." The author who has most carefully noted the 

 different epochs at which American agriculture has been enriched 

 by foreign products, the Peruvian Garcilasso de la Vegas§ says 

 distinctly that at the time of the Incas, maize, quinoa, the potato, 

 and, in the warm and temperate regions, bananas, formed the 

 staple food of the natives. He describes the Musa of the valleys 

 in the Andes ; he even distinguishes the rarer species with a small 

 fruit and a sweet aromatic flavour, the dominico from the common 

 banana or arton. Father Acosta|| asserts also, although less 

 positively, that the Micsa was cultivated by the Americans before 

 the arrival of the Spaniards. Lastly, Humboldt adds from his 

 own observation, " On the banks of the Orinoco, of the Cassi- 

 quaire or of the Beni, between the mountains of Esmeralda and 



* Oviedo, Hist. Nat. 1556, p. 112. Oviedo's first work is of 1526. He is 

 the earliest naturalist quoted by Dryander (Bibl. Banks) for America. 

 (The full title of Oviedo's work is ' ' Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez 

 Sumario dela Natural y General Istoria de las Indias, Toledo 1526. Fol. 

 52 foil. Another edition is entitled " Frimera part de la Historia Natural y 

 General de las Indias, Yslas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano." Sevilla 15.35, 

 folio CXCIII. foil., with one plate of very rude wood engravings. Books 

 VII, VIII, IX. and X. refer to botanical subjects. The book was translated 

 from Castilian into French in Paris by Michel de Vascosan in 1555, folio 

 134 foil, and one plate of wood engravings. There exist only the ten first 

 books of this work. It appears to have been the French translation that 

 De Candolle refers to.) 



+ I have also seen this passage in the translation of Oviedo by Ramusio, 

 III. p. 115. 



J Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, 2nd. Edit. p. 385. 



§ Garcilasso de la Vega, Commentaries Reales, I. p. 282. 



II Acosta, Hist. Nat. de Indias, 1608, p. 250. 



