-#» Pepper and Gold 



by no means the joke that they now seem to us.^ The 

 Normans, the Genoese, and - the Portuguese successively felt 

 after some sea-route to India round Africa which should enable 

 them to obtain pepper in defiance of the Venetians and Turks. 

 The invention in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the 

 mariner's compass came as an aid to maritime exploration ; 

 though without this help the bold Norsemen had already dis- 

 covered North America and had in their Norman descendants 

 explored the Eastern Atlantic. 



The first object, therefore, of European research along the 

 Atlantic coast of Africa was gold, and, secondly, a route to 

 India along that coast which might lead to a trade in pepper. 

 Judge, therefore (if we may believe French traditions), of the 

 delight of the Dieppois when in their tentative explorations 

 of the Guinea coast they discovered pepper, apparently of two 

 kinds, in use by the Negroes. The first of these spices which 

 they brought to light was the "grains of Paradise." These 

 were obtained from Sierra Leone, and notably the coast of 

 Liberia, which is the reason why that part of Guinea has been 

 known on the maps for several centuries as the " Grain " 

 Coast. These grains of Paradise are sometimes called cardamoms 

 (cardamom is really the name of a kindred species from Eastern 

 Asia), and sometimes Malagueta or Maniguette pepper. The 

 origin of the word Malagueta is uncertain, but it may be that 

 in the days of Moorish Spain, Malaga was an emporium for 

 this new spice ; for it is known that these grains of Paradise 

 were first introduced into the Mediterranean world by the 

 Moors, who obtained them through the overland trade already 

 existing between Mauritania and West Africa. The grains are 



' A peppercorn rent generally iipplied an obligation to supply at least one 

 pound of pepper, a tax amounting possibly to as much as ^5 to /lo in our 

 money. 



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