THE SUGAR-CANE PLANT 



Silence of 

 Baber.} 



SACCHARUM 



OFFICINARUM 

 History 



sugar during 1500 A.D., and other travellers shortly after the time indicated dis- 

 cuss the sugar of India. Thus, for example, Varthema (Travels, 1510 (ed. Hakl. 

 Soc.), 163) explored the west coast and furnished many details of the trade and 

 industries of Calicut. He gives a full account of its fruit trees, and says of the 

 cocoanut that it is the best tree in all the world. He describes its wine and 

 sugar and tells of the monkeys stealing the former. But he makes no mention 

 of sugar-cane. Of a town in North Kanara, identified with Sedasevaghur 

 (which he calls Bathacala), he observes that it possesses " a great quantity of 

 sugar," but from the previous account of the Calicut sugar it may be presumed 

 this also was palm-sugar. It is somewhat strange that Garcia de Orta should 

 make no mention of sugar-cane, and it is certainly most singular that Baber 

 (Memoirs, 1519 (Leyden and Erskine, transl.), 326-7) should furnish many inter- 

 esting details of the date, the cocoanut and the palmyra palms, but make no 

 mention of the sugar prepared from them nor of the sugar-cane fields of India. 

 He speaks of the juice of the palms being called tari, and of its being drunk 

 both fresh and after it had fermented. But he admittedly describes only 

 the plants and animals seen in Hindustan which were different from those 

 of his own country Ferghana and Bokhara. He accordingly apologises for 

 having mentioned the date-palm, which was not confined to Hindustan. It 

 has already been pointed out that Rheede, the earliest and even to-day 

 one of the most accurate of Indian botanists, while describing and figuring 

 ittii-iiHHUM, should make no mention of its sugar, though he describes the sugar 

 of the cocoanut ; and even still more curious is it that he is silent as to sugar- 

 cane. The Ain-i-Akbari (1590, Blochmann, transl., 69) fortunately gives us full 

 particulars. " Sugar-cane, which the Persians call naishakar, is of various 

 kinds, etc., etc." Linschoten has much to say regarding sugar (aura), but his 

 reference to sugar-cane would appear to have confused it with bamboo (mambu, 

 as he calls it), the old error that descended from the classic times of Greece and 

 Rome, so that it is possible even Linschoten had not personally examined the 

 plant. Thevenot (Travels in Levant, Indostan, etc., 1687, pt. iii., 26) mentions 

 the cultivation of the sugar-cane in Surat. 



There would seem little doubt that sugar-cane cultivation originated in 

 Southern Asia, if not in India, but it has never been satisfactorily proved to have 

 been met with wild in India or anywhere else, and is accordingly known purely 

 and simply as a cultivated plant. Loureiro would, however, seem to think it 

 was indigenous to Cochin-China (Fl. Coch.-Chin., i., 52), but perhaps with no 

 greater justification than the statement of its having been found wild in the 

 Car-Nicobar island. The mention of sugar, by European travellers to the west 

 coast of India, almost invariably denotes palm-sugar, and as that part of India 

 was first reached and explored, it seems likely that an undue importance has 

 been given to palm-sugar (see remarks under Trade). It is, however, to say 

 the least of it, very surprising that the early botanists who deal with the 

 plants of India make no mention of sugar-cane. Thus, for example, Rheede 

 (1698 A.D.) gives a brief account of one of the naked-seeded sorghums, 

 but says nothing of its yielding sugar. Rumphius (1750) tells us, however, 

 that the white-seeded sorghums often have the stems so sweet that they 

 are regularly chewn for their sweet juices, but adds that sugar is never 

 made from them as from sugar-cane. In a further passage he gives full par- 

 ticulars regarding sugar-cane cultivation in the Dutch colonies, but ventures 

 no opinion as to the home of the plant. Miquel, Hasskarl and Blanco make no 

 mention of wild sugar-cane in Sumatra, Java or the Philippine Islands. Crawfurd 

 tells us that he failed to find it in the Indian Archipelago. It seems fairly cer- 

 tain, however, that the Muhammadans were conspicuously identified with the 

 extended cultivation of both cotton and sugar-cane. After the Muhammadans, 

 the Portuguese were perhaps the people most closely associated with the early 

 distribution of sugar-cane cultivation. In 1419 it was taken to Madeira from 

 Sicily (Purchas 1 Pilgrimes, i., 5), and there would seem every reason for be- 

 lieving that this was its first appearance on the islands of'the Atlantic. Sloane 

 (Nat. Hist. Jam., 1707, i., 108-9), while describing sugar-cane and the manu- 

 facture of sugar, dwells especially on the necessity of adding an alkaline salt 

 or " temper " to the boiling liquid, to facilitate the formation of the crystalline 

 article- But although the story of the Muhammadan influence is generally 

 accepted, it is somewhat curious that Browne (Hist. Jam., 1789, 129-33) should 

 have regarded the plant as a native of the Canary Islands. He appears to have 

 thought it existed there before its introduction by the Spaniards and the Portu- 



932 



Silence 

 of Rheede. 



Akbar. 



Surat W 

 Sugar-cane. 

 Wild in 

 Cochin-China. 



Sorghum. 



Muhammadans. 



West 

 Indies. 



