APPENDIX. 159 



middle of the fourth century, under the Selucidae, 

 they had established a colony at Kashgar, the usual 

 route of caravans to Toorkistan or to China, and 

 which, according to Albufeda (a geographer and 

 historian of Damascus), is situated in longitude 87 

 (73 570' consequently they had penetrated very 

 far into Asia. 



Never had there been in Asia an empire so vast, 

 and never had the commerce of nations so near 

 Europe been pushed so far into India. 



A position thus advantageous and favorable to the 

 commercial spirit and love of luxury which succeed- 

 ed, among the Arabs, the fury of conquest, would 

 naturally cause them to learn of and to appropriate 

 many exotic plants peculiar to the regions they had 

 conquered, or to the adjoining countries. Fond of 

 medicine and agriculture, in which they have 

 specially excelled, and of the pleasures of the open 

 country, in which they have always delighted, they 

 continued to profit with eagerness from the advan- 

 tages offered by their settlements, and the hot cli- 

 mates which they inhabited. Indeed, it is to them 

 that we owe the knowledge of many plants, perfumes, 

 and Oriental aromatics, such as musk, nutmegs, 

 mace, and cloves. 



It was the Arabs who naturalized, in Spain, Sar- 

 dinia, and Sicily, the cotton-tree of Africa and the 

 sugar-cane of India ; and in their medicines we for 

 the first time hear of the chemical change known 

 as distillation, which appears to have originated in 



