427 



With the sacking of Eome the use of indigo became lost to 

 Europe ; but without doubt India still grew it : and it can be shown 

 that the Arabs who brought paper making into Europe and tlie 

 :sugar-cane, brought a knowledge of indigo cultivation at least into 

 Asia minor. Europe, as it had always done in chief part, meanwhile 

 went on using woad for its blue dye ; l)ut after a time a little indigo 

 (now of Arabian origin) filtered afresh along the Mediterranean to 

 Italy. And later wlien Vasco da Gama in 1516 had opened the way 

 to India, the Portuguese east indiamen began to bring Indian indigo 

 to the great mart of Lisbon. After the Great Armada had been des- 

 troyed, and with the asceudency of the Dutch wliich followed, the 

 ■cultivation of indigo in Malabar and the Malayan region was en- 

 couraged ; for trade in it was very remunerative, as for instance, in 

 1631 when five dutch merchant vessels brought from Batavia into 

 Amsterdam 285 tons of indigo then worth as much as five tons of 

 gold. 



From this period dates the eclipse of woad in Europe, but not 

 its extinction; for woad is still used to induce the dyeing with 

 indigo. 



Indigo growing even invaded Europe: for a century and more 

 back its cultivation was tried with success in various places, e.g. 

 Malta, Sicily, Southern Italy and Spain ; and with passable results 

 even in Southern France (department of Yaucluse) : but it is cer- 

 tainly not a plant that can be grown economically now that the 

 value it had has dropped to one quarter. 



At least three species of Indigofera contril)uted to the early 

 ■supplv ; for, while Surat indigo was derived from the cultivation 

 of Indigofpra articulaia,, Gouan, the cultivation of indigo m South 

 India would seem to have been of Indigofera ttndona, Lmn. : 

 and in the Malav region the Dutch met with I. sumatrana, 

 Gaertn and thev interchanged the two latter; they brought /. 

 tinctoria to Malaga ; while they took I. sumatraiia to India : and 

 / sumatrana proving the better, they adopted it m both places. 

 They spread it through Malabar and Madras; and when uiuler 

 tlie rule of the East India Company indigo began to be produced 

 in Ben-al, I. sumatrana was the species brought into cultivation 

 around'"c;alcutta, whence its cultivation was taken north to Eajshahi 

 and then west to Behar, it becoming the plant of tlie well known 

 Behar indio-o industrv. From this beginning for three quarters ot 

 a century Bengal went on cultivating the one species. /. sumatrana, 

 which the Dutch had l)rought into southern India so long before. 



Europe, however did not draw anything like the whole of its 

 requirements of the dve from the East; but tapped (1) the West 

 Indies and southern of the United States, where at tlie end of the 

 irth century I. tinctoria was the indigo grown, and (2) HvavaI 

 ■where an American species /. suffruticosa, Mill. (I. Am 1 Lmn.) 

 was brought into cultivation. From the I^^ew World the latter 

 found its way into the Malay region, and as the Dutch l)elieved 

 it better than /. sumatrana they changed their croj) m Java; at the 



