J 46 



WESTERN HINDOOSTAN. 



fevere nature. It is ufed as the baftinado, and often till death 

 enfues, in the molt cruel manner. 

 Sugar. Sugar was originally brought from Indiay by the intro- 



dudion of the plant, the Saccharum Officinarum. I fhall here 

 give fome account of this ufeful article, and its various removals 

 from its native place into Europe, where it was for fome ages 

 cultivated with great fuccefs. '* Jrabiai" fays P/iny, lib. xii. 

 c. 8, " produces Saccaron, but the bell is in India.''' It is a honey 

 ** collected from reeds, a fort of white gum, brittle betv»een 

 *' the teeth : the largeft pieces do not exceed the lize of a hazel 

 " nut, and it is ufed only in miCdicine." 



ANTiciuiTY OF. The cane was an article of commerce in very early times. 

 The prophets Ifaiah*- and Jeremiah \ make mention of it: 

 " Thou haft brought me no fweet cane, with money," fays the 

 firft : and the fecond, "To what purpofe cometh there to 

 ** me the fweet cane from a far country ?" Brought for the 

 luxury of the juice, either extradted by fuftion or by fome 

 other means. In the note on the elegant poem, the Sugar 

 Cane J, Dodlor Grainger informs us, that at firft the raw 

 juice was made ufe of; they afterwards boiled it into a fyrup, 

 and, in procefs of time, an inebriating fpirit was prepared 

 therefrom, by fermentation. 



Its Removals. Sugar was firft made from the reed rsxEgypt, from thence 

 the plant was carried into Sicily, which, in the twelfth century, 

 fupplied many parts of Europe with that commodity ; and from 

 thence, at a period unknown, it was probably brought into Spain^ 

 by the Moors. From Spain the reed was planted in the Canary 



* Ch. xlv. 24. .j. Ch. vi. 20, X Note in Book ix. 22. 



iflands, 



