THE OKANGE AND ITS ALLIES. 163 



thesis in the chapter on "Nuts"), what poetic raptures 

 would surely have been evoked, had they been blest with 

 possession of the far more really auriferous orange so 

 brilliantly tinted a casket concealing such exquisite con- 

 tents ! But the Greek, alas ! knew it not, nor yet the 

 Eoman ; and it is sought in vain in Pliny's ample page or 

 in the records of Apician banquets. It is true that a 

 contrary opinion long prevailed, for when the Crusaders 

 invaded Syria they found this fruit so abundant there 

 that they believed it must be indigenous ; and, dazzled by 

 its bright hue, concluded at once that it must be the 

 famous " Golden Apple " of Greek fable and of Hebrew 

 Scripture imposed a name upon it accordingly; and then, 

 with supreme disregard to logical consistency, argued from 

 this very name to prove its identity. It was not until 

 the year 1811 that its history was first carefully traced, 

 when Galessio, in his Traite du Citrus, published at Paris 

 a work of great learning and research demonstrated 

 that the Arabian, Avicenna, who died in 1036, was the 

 first writer who distinctly mentions the orange. Indis- 

 putably a native of India, yet unnoticed by JNearchus 

 among the productions of that part of the country which 

 was conquered by Alexander the Great, Galessio believes 

 that the Arabs found it when they penetrated farther into 

 the interior than the son of Ammon had reached, and in 

 the 10th century enriched the gardens of Oman with 

 this new luxury. In 1002, Leon d'Ostie writes, that a 

 Prince of Salerno sent a present of Poma Citrina, inter- 

 preted to be a fruit like the Citron rather than the Citron 

 itself, to the Norman princes who had delivered him 

 from the Saracens. Avicenna, however, speaks more 

 plainly, describing unmistakeably the oil of oranges and 

 of orange seeds as preparations used medicinally. Jacques 

 Vitry, an historian of the 13th century, who accompanied 

 the Crusaders in Palestine, after describing the Lemon 

 and Citron found there, says that in the same country 

 are seen another species of Citron Apples, of which the 

 cold part (or pulp, in contradistinction to the "hot" or 

 acrid rind) is the least considerable, being of an acid and 

 disagreeable taste. That it was, perhaps, an unripe fruit 



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