HISTORICAL CONSPECTUS 



According to Hindoo m\-tholog}^ Vishna ]\Iitra created the sugar cane 

 in the temporary paradise of Rajah Irishanku. On the destruction of this 

 paradise the sugar cane was granted to the use of mortals. 



327 B.C. Soldiers of Alexander the Great were the first Europeans to see 

 the sugar cane. 



600 A.D. (circa). The Chinese Emperor Tsai-Heng sent agents to Behar 

 (India) to study the art of sugar manufacture. At this period the 

 marketed product was the juice concentrated nearl}- to dryness. The 

 art gradually extended westwards and developed in Persia and the 

 surrounding countries. Nestorian monks at Gondishapur at the mouth 

 of the Euphrates were the first to refine, and to produce a white sugar. 

 The invention of the sugar loaf is perhaps to be attributed to them. 



627, Sugar is mentioned as amongst the spoils captured at the taking of 

 Dastagerd (Persia) by the Byzantines. 



641. Egypt conquered b}' the Arabs (Saracens), who introduced the sugar 

 cane, thus marking the beginning of the ^Mediterranean industr}'. 



755 (circa). Abdur-rahman I introduced the cane to Spain. 

 827. The Arabs reached Sicil3\ 



As a result of the Saracenic incursion* to Africa and Europe a substantial 

 industry was established on the littoral and in the islands of the Mediter- 

 ranean, especially in Egypt, Spain and Sicil}^ A superior large crystal 

 sugar was made in Eg\"pt, which was marketed as far east as India, where 

 to this day this type of sugar is known as Egyptian or Cairene. In Spain 

 the industry reached a great extension, some 75,000 acres being under 

 cultivation by 1150. After this date Christians drove the ^Moslems from 

 Spain, and the industry languished. It still survives with an unbroken 

 descent of 1200 years, a monument to the lost Arabic civilisation. Sugar, 

 probably Egyptian, was used in the King's household in England in 1264, 

 and in 13 19 Tommaso Loredano, a Venetian merchant, sent a cargo of sugar 

 to England in exchange for wool. On the return journey both ship and 

 cargo were captured by English pirates. 



1419. The University of Palermo gave instruction in the cultivation and 

 irrigation of the cane. 



1420. Dom Henry the Navigator sent the cane to Madeira, and subse- 

 quently under Portuguese enterprise it reached the Azores, the Canaries,, 

 the Cape de Verde Islands and V/est Africa. These introductions mark 

 the beginning of the decline of the ^lediterranean industry. 



1449. Pietro Speciale constructed a three-roller mill, the rollers being 

 either vertical or horizontal. 



605 



