130 YIEWS OF NATURE. 



itself spontaneously." Koch collected in the Schirwan part 

 of the Caucasus a kind of grain which he calls Hordeum 

 spontaneum, and regards as the originally wild Hordeum 

 zeocriton. (Linn.)* 



A negro slave ofthe great Cortes was the first who cultiva- 

 ted wheat in New Spain, from three seeds which he found 

 amongst some rice Drought from Spain for the use of the 

 troops. In the Franciscan convent at Quito I saw, pre- 

 served as a relic, the earthen vessel which had contained 

 the first wheat sowed in Quito bv the Franciscan monk, 

 Fray Jodoco Rixi de Gante, a native of Ghent in Flanders. 

 The first crop was raised in front of the convent, on the 

 " Plazuela de S. Francisco," after the wood which then ex- 

 tended from the foot of the Volcano of Pichincha had been 

 cleared. The monks, whom I frequently visited during my 

 stay at Quito, begged me to explain the inscription on the 

 cup, which according to their conjecture contained some 

 hidden allusion to wheat. On examining the vessel, I read 

 in old German the words " Let him who drinks from me, 

 ne'er forget his God." This old German drinking cup excited 

 in me feelings of veneration! Would that everywhere in the 

 New Continent the names of those were preserved who, 

 instead of devastating the soil by bloody conquests, confided 

 to it the first fruits of Ceres ! There are " fewer examples of 

 a general affinity of names in terms relating to the different 

 species of corn and objects of agriculture than to the rearing 

 of cattle. Herdsmen when they migrated to other regions 

 had still much in common, while the subsequent cultivators of 

 the soil had to invent special words. But the fact that in 

 comparison with the Sanscrit, Romans and Greeks seem to 

 stand on the same footing with Germans and Slavonians, 

 speaks in favour of the very early contemporaneous emigra- 

 tion of the two latter. Yet the Indian Java (Jrumentum 

 hordeum), when compared with the Lithuanian jaicai, and the 

 Finnish jywa, affords a striking exception. "\ 



(28) p. 11. — "Preferring to keep within a cooler climate.':' 



Throughout the whole of Mexico and Peru we find the 

 trace of human civilisation confined to the elevated table- 



* Carl Koch, Beitrage zur Flora des Orients. Heft. 1, s. 139., 142. 

 T Jacob Grinim,, Gesch. der deutschen Sprache, th. i. s. 69. 



