Professor Traill on the Sugar-Cane in Spain. 257 
The first distinct account in classic authors of this import- 
ant production is derived from the discoveries of Nearchus, 
the officer sent down the Indus by Alexander the Great to 
explore the Indian seas, in the year 325 B.C. According to 
Strabo, he describes it as a honey prepared from a reed with- 
out the agency of bees. 
Elgnue de xo regi roy nordawy, OT! Tolouel [MEAl, WMEAAIOWY [4 dUOWY. 
Lib. xv. 
Sugar is spoken of by Varro as a sweet fluid expressed from 
areed. (Fragment. ap. Isidorum.) 
Dioscorides describes cuxyagov as a concrete honey obtained 
from reeds, which he compares to salt in consistence, and in 
crashing between the teeth.* Pliny’s description is to the 
same purpose. ‘“ Est autem mel in arundinibus collectum, 
gummium modo, candidum, dentibus fragile.” Lib. xii. ¢. 8. 
He also states that sugar of India is superior to that of Arabia. 
From Arrian we learn that caxyag was an article of commerce 
in the Erythrzean Sea. He speaks of it, among other merchan- 
dise, as wheat, rice, butter, oil of sesame, linen cloth, girdles, 
Hol wes Tb Karan Td Keyouerov Saxyao. Periplus Mar. Erythr.t 
Sugar is also mentioned in a fragment of Theophrastus as 
Wehiros yeveots Oey ros zaAGMO IS. 
We have now no doubt*that the sugar cane is indigenous 
to India, and perhaps to China, although, as with other plants 
long cultivated by man, it may be difficult to point out the 
precise district where it was first discovered, The antiquity 
of the Indian cultivation of the sugar-cane is matter of his- 
tory ; and recent investigations have proved that the Chinese 
have, from remote epochs, been acquainted with the prepara- 
tion of sugar. 
The appellations by which it is known might almost lead 
us to conjecture the source from which different countries ob- 
tained their knowledge of the plant. ‘The Sanscrit name 
* Kersros dt 71 TaK x U0OY, Zidos ov wtdiros, ev Idi awemnyoros xo 7H E'vdoupeovs 
o , ~ ov ~ ‘7 c ~ 
Apa fiw, tuprxoutvoy tai rav Karouwy, tuoov rH custace “Aros xxi Spzvusvoy dao Trois 
oda ve1 xoSomrtp adits; Lib. II. c. 104. 
T Yiros, xou opuSa, xou Bovrupov, xou tAmiov onooniov, eos DDovov, Te poovaxn, KaL 
cuyporoynvn, xo ripilaara, nos Medi rd Kadapsvov, ro Asyousvoy Saxyzup Perip. 
Ed. Stuck. Ludg. 1577. 
