594 GRAMINEM. 



{^ 



Herodotus 



tus, Seneca, Strabo, and other early writers as ^^ Honey of Canes " 



Honey 



The vernacular names 



Misri, '^ Egyptian/' for refined sugar, and Chini, '' Chinese/' 

 for sugar -candy ^ point to these crystalline forms of sugar as 

 comparatively recent introductions into India, and at the 

 present time the sugar-candy of Indian commerce is chiefly 

 imported from China. When we consider that the sugar-cane 

 was known to the ancients from the time of ISTearchus, it is 

 hardly reasonable to suppose that Pliny could be so ill-informed 

 as to speak of Saccharam, if by that name he meant cane-sugar, 

 as only employed in medicine. Lucan, writing about the 

 same time, was aware that the Hindus di-ank the juice of the 



cane: 



Quique 



?> 



At the present day, the cane-presser, with his primitive 



press, is a familiar personage at Indian fairs, where he 



dispenses the luscious juice to his customers at about twopence 

 a pint. 



r 



Sugar, under the name of SH-mi "stone honey," is 

 frequently mentioned in the ancient Chinese annals among the 

 productions of India and Persia ; and it is recorded that the 

 Emperor Tai^-tsung (A.B. 626—650) sent an envoy to the 



^adha in India, to learn the method of marni- 



Ma 



'facturing it. 



Woi 



The Chinese acknowledge that the Indians between A.D. 766 

 and 780 were their first teachers in the art of making sugar. 

 An Arabian writer, Abu Zaid-el-Hasan, states that about 

 A.D. 850 the sugar-cane was growing on the north-eastern 

 shore of the Persian Gulf ; and in the following century, the 

 traveller ^ AH Istakhri found sugar abundantly produced in 

 the Persian Province of Kuzistan. About the same time 

 (950) Moses Chorenensis stated that the manufacture of 

 sugar was flourishing near the celebrated school of medicine 

 at Jondisabur in the same province, and remains of thi 



