310 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



into Mexico from Cuernavaca and the other valleys. On 

 the continent and in some of the islands there are great 

 plantations of them which form dense thickets." Surely it 

 is not thus that the author would express himself were 

 he writing of a fruit tree of American origin. He would 

 quote American names and customs ; above all, he would 

 not say that the natives regarded it as a plant of foreign 

 origin. Its diffusion in the warm regions of Mexico may 

 well have taken place between the epoch of the conquest 

 and the time when Acosta wrote, since Hernandez, whose 

 conscientious researches go back to the earliest times of 

 the Spanish dominion in Mexico (though published later 

 in Rome), says not a word of the banana.^ Prescott the 

 historian saw ancient books and manuscripts which assert 

 that the inhabitants of Tumbez brought bananas to 

 Pizarro when he disembarked upon the Peruvian coast, 

 and he believes that its leaves were found in the huacas, 

 but he does not give his proofs.^ 



As regards the argument of the modern native 

 plantations in regions of America, remote from European 

 settlements, I find it hard to believe that tribes have 

 remained absolutely isolated, and have not received so 

 useful a tree from colonized districts. 



Briefly, then, it appears to me most probable that the 

 species was early introduced by the Spanish and Portu- 

 Sfuese into San Domingo and Brazil, and I confess that 

 this implies that Garcilasso was in error with regard to 

 Peruvian traditions. If, however, later research should 

 prove that the banana existed in some parts of America 

 before the advent of the Europeans, I should be inclined 

 to attribute it to a chance introduction, not very ancient, 

 the efi'ect of some unknown communication with the 

 islands of the Pacific, or with the coast of Guinea, rather 

 than to believe in the primitive and simultaneous existence 



Andes has since been applied to the chain of mountains by a strange 

 and unfortunate transfer. 



^ I have read through the entire work, to make sure of this fact. 



2 Prescott, Conquest of Peru. The author has consulted valuable 

 records, among others a manuscript of Montesinos of 1527; but he 

 does not quote his authorities for each fact, and contents himself with 

 vague and general indications, which are very insufficient. 



