458 | 
honey ; and which being boiled, in 
the same manner as honey, is ren- 
dered less purgative, without im- 
pairing its nutritive quality.” 
Paulus AEgineta speaks of sugar, 
as growing, in his time, in Europe, 
and also as brought from Arabia 
Felix; the latter of which he seems 
to think jess*sweet than the sugar 
produced in Europe, and neither 
injurious to the stomach nor causing 
thirst, as the European sugar was 
apt to do. 
Achmet, a writer, who, accord- 
ing to some, lived about the year 
$30, speaks familiarly of.sugar, as 
common in his time. 
Avicenna, the Arab physician, 
speaks of sugar as being a produce 
af reeds; but it appears he meant 
the sugar called Tabaxir or Tab- 
barzet, at he calls it by that name. 
It does not zppear, that any of 
the above mentioned writers knew 
of the method of preparing segar, by 
boiling down the juice of the reeds 
to aconsistence. It is also thought, 
the sugar they had was not pro- 
eured from the sugar cane in use at 
present, but from another of a 
larger size, called Tabbarazet by 
Avicenna, which is the Arundo 
Arbor of Caspar Bauhia, the Succa 
Mambur of later writers, and the 
Arunbo Bawhss of Linneus, This 
yields a sweet milky juice, and 
oftentimes a hard crystallized mat. 
ter, cxaétly resembling sugar, both 
in taste and appearance. 
The historians of the Crusades 
rnake the next mention of sugar, 
of any that have fallen under my 
observation. 
The author of the Historia Hie- 
yosolymitana says, that the Cru- 
saders found in Syria certain reeds 
called Canameles, of which it was 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1706. 
reported a kind of wild honey was 
made; but does not say that he 
saw any so manufactured. . 
Albertus Agnensis relates, that 
about the same period, * the Cru- 
saders found sweet honeyed reeds 
in great quantity, in the meadows 
about Tripoli, in Syria, which 
reeds were called Zucra. These the 
people (che Crusaders army) sucked, 
and were much pleased with the 
sweet taste of them, with which 
they could scarcely be satisfied. 
This plant (the author tells us) is 
cultivated with great labour of the 
husbandmen every year. At the 
time of harvest they bruise it, when 
ripe, in mortars; and set by the 
strained juices in vessels, till it ts 
concreted in form of snow, or of 
white slr. This, when scraped, 
they mix with bread, or rub it with 
water, and take it as pottage ; and 
it is to them more wholesome and 
pleasing than the honey of bees. 
‘the people who were engaged in 
the sieges of Albaria Marra, and 
Archas, and suffered dreadful hun- 
ger, were much refreshed hereby.’’ 
The same author, in the account 
of the reign of Baldwin, mentions 
eleven camels, laden with sugar, 
being taken by the Crusaders, so 
that it must have been made in 
considerable quantity. 
Jacobus de Vitriaco mentions, 
that ‘* in Syria reeds grow that are 
full of honey, by which he under- 
stands a sweet juice, which by the 
pressure of a screw engine, and 
concreted by fire, becomes sugar.’” 
This is the first account I have met 
with of the employment of heat or 
‘fire in the making of sugar. 
About the same period, Willer- 
mus Tyrensis speaks of sugar as 
made in the neighbourhood of bis 
an 
