48 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



blessings. In India Brahma descended from heaven for 

 that purpose, in Egypt Isis ; Greece owed the gift to her 

 Demeter, Rome to Ceres. The ancient Peruvians even 

 had similar legends about the origin of maize, . which 

 the bold Spaniards, who invaded their ancient kingdom, 

 found cultivated on sacred ground around the Incas' 

 Temple of the Sun, at an elevation of 12,000 feet above 

 the sea. The ripened grain was solemnly sacrificed to 

 their god or distributed among the people who ascribed 

 to it miraculous powers. But, setting these fables aside, 

 both tradition and history point invariably to the East 

 as the land from which these grasses first came. Myths 

 even lose them on the high table-lands of Asia, where, 

 it has been conjectured, a late and last rise of the land 

 in distant ages, and a sudden elevation of mountains may 

 have scattered them so, that they can no longer be found 

 even in their original fatherland. Now they are met with 

 only cultivated or run wild, and even ancient Sanscrit has 

 no proper word for them, but calls wheat already food 

 of Barbarians, thus indicating its Northwestern origin. 



Not all nations, however, can lay equal claim to the 

 distribution of these noble gifts of nature. It is the 

 Caucasian races alone who have caused the migrations 

 of the most important plants from their original home, 

 wherever that may be, to the four quarters of the globe. 

 Europeans have, by degrees, transplanted to their own 

 land all the characteristic plants of other races. They 

 have fetched the finer fruits, the almond, apricot, and 

 peach, from Persia and Asia Minor; they have brought 

 the orange from China, transplanted rice and cotton to 



