140 



HISTORY OF SUGAR. 



MRS. F. 



There is no mention made of sugar in the sacred writings, 

 or in the history of Egypt or Phoenicia. The great physi- 

 cians, Theophrastus, &c., are the first who have spoken of it, 

 under the name of " Indian salt;" and from the descriptions 

 given of it by Pliny and Dioscorides, it appears, that it was 

 produced only in the form that we now call sugar-candy. 

 The " Indian salt" was brought to Greece and Rome from 

 India within the Ganges, and Arabia; but it was not culti- 

 vated in these countries. The sugar cane then only grew in the 

 Islands of the Indian Archipelago, in the kingdoms of Bengal, 

 Siam, &c.; and the sugar produced from it passed, with per- 

 fumery, spices and other merchandise, to the countries on this 

 side of the Ganges. It found its way into Arabia in the 13th 

 century, that being the period when merchants first began to 

 visit India. 



HENRIETTA. 



Did the merchants know what plant produced the sugar? 



MRS. F. 



The Indians, who carried sugar to Ormus, informed the 

 merchants that they extracted it from a reed; but this indefi- 

 nite assertion, divested of all circumstantial detail, gave rise 

 to a variety of speculations respecting a plant which yielded 

 so extraordinary a product.* Some thought it a kind of 

 honey which formed itself without the assistance of bees; 

 others considered it as a shower from heaven which fell upon 



* On the strength of this information, the Asiatics on this side the 

 Ganges sought among their reeds for one which yielded so precious 

 a production, and found a kind of Bamboo (called Jtfambu), which 

 gave a white spongy concretion somewhat similar in taste to sugar. 

 The Arabians also strove to find sugar in their country, and the con- 

 crete juice of a kind of Dogsbane (Jlpocynum), known to them by 

 the name of Jllhasser, they called sugar. Hence Avicennes speaks 

 of three sorts of sugary Zucca arundineum, which is the Indian salt, 

 or our sugar-candy, the Zuccar mambu, or Tabaxir of the Persians; 

 and Alhcifser Zuccar of the Arabians. 



