340 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



rope or in Syria; but that we are indebted for the 

 first knowledge of it to the Arabs, who, with their 

 zeal to propagate the religion of the Koran, were as 

 anxious to extend the advantages of agriculture and 

 medicine. The sweet orange which they introduced 

 was not, strictly speaking, that which has since been 

 called the China orange, and under that name in- 

 troduced into Spain, Portugal, St. Michael's the 

 other Atlantic isles, and the West Indies; but rather 

 the orange which was known in Italy before Vasco de 

 Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope. 



The orange is said to have been found by the 

 Portuguese upon the east coast of Africa; but it is 

 not known whether it had been indigenous there, 

 or disseminated by the Arabs. When the Portuguese 

 reached India, they found the orange there, and also 

 in China, which was visited for the first time by sea 

 in the early part of the sixteenth century. 



Although the oranges of St. Michael, in the Azores, 

 are now the best that are to be met with in the Euro- 

 pean market, they are not indigenous productions 

 of that island; but were sent there by the Portu- 

 guese, as the same fruit was originally sent to the 

 American continent by the Spaniards. In the middle 

 of a forest on the banks of the Rio Cedeno, Hum- 

 boldt found wild orange trees, laden with large and 

 sweet fruit. They were, probably, the remains of 

 some old Indian plantations; for the orange cannot 

 be reckoned amongst the spontaneous vegetable pro- 

 ductions of the New World. 



But, in whatever way oranges were first intro- 

 duced into those parts of the world of which they 

 are not natives, they are now very widely diffused; 

 and wherever they are found they are among the 

 most ornamental of trees, and the most delightful of 

 fruits. The species and varieties have also been 

 greatly multiplied; but whether from their proneness 



