ESSEX SOCIETY. 105 



of cultivating maize at the present day. The Portuguese wri- 

 ter, Sata Roza de Viterbo, also, asserts, that it was known in 

 the thirteenth century.* Whatever may be said of its origin, 

 it seems to have been first introduced into Turkey, from 

 whence it made its way to the West. This is shown by the names 

 which have been given to it in Europe, several of them indicating 

 that it came through Turkey. But according to some Spanish 

 authors, it was brought into Spain by the Arabs.f A Chinese 

 writer of the middle of the sixteenth century, draws the figure 

 of the maize as known in China, which is said to correspond 

 with some species of maize now known. Some travellers who 

 have visited the Asiatic Isles, have inferred that it was cultivated 

 about the equator, in that vicinity, from great antiquity, and 

 that it passed from these isles into China, and thence to the 

 interior about the Himalaya. John Crawford, who lived for 

 years in the island of Java, says : — " Maize is, next to rice, the 

 most important agricultural product among the great tribes of 

 the Indian Archipelago."' Mr. Rifaud asserts, that some kernels 

 were found in the sarcophagus of a mummy in Thebes, in 

 1819. The well known orientalist, D'Herbelot, mentions J a 

 passage of Mirkond, a Persian historian, which might lead us 

 to suppose, that maize was known to the old world, long before 

 the discovery of the new. 



Now the question arises, whether the meliga described in the 

 old chart of Incisa alluded to, was identical with the zea mais ? 

 Bonafous says, on this point, that the description of the meliga 

 from the East, corresponds to maize, but that according to the 

 learned author of the Flore d'Egypte, in the description pub- 

 lished by order of Napoleon, it can equally well be applied to 

 the millet of India, in which the grains pass in some of the 

 varieties, from yellow to white. But Cardan says,<§. distinctly, 

 that maize strongly resembles the plant known in Italy as 

 melica, or sorghum, which is the meliga of Incisa. So of sev- 

 eral other authorities, as Matthioli and Georges de Turre. 



* Bonafous Hist, du Mais. 



t Valcarcel, Agricultura General y g-obierno de la casa del campo. Valencia : 1768. 

 I X Bibliolheque Orienlale. 1778. Tom. iii., p. 137. 

 ^ De Subtilitate. Lib. xxi., p, 389. Basil, 1553. 



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