386 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



arunya} whence come, probably, several names in modern 

 Indian languages, and oriiza or ovxizon of tlie ancient 

 Greeks, roiiz or arous of the Arabs. Theophrastus ^ 

 mentioned rice as cultivated in India. The Greeks 

 became acquainted with it through Alexander's expedi- 

 tion. "According to Aristobulus/' says Strabo,^ "rice 

 grows in Bactriana, Babjdonia, Susida ; " and he adds, 

 " we may also add in Lower Syria." Further on he notes 

 that the Indians use it for food, and extract a spirit from 

 it. These assertions, doubtful perhaps for Bactriana, 

 show that this cultivation was firmly established, at 

 least, from the time of Alexander (400 B.C.), in the 

 Euphrates valley, and from the beginning of our era 

 in the hot and irrigated districts of Syria. The Old 

 Testament does not mention rice, but a careful and 

 judicious writer, Reynier,^ has remarked several passages 

 in the Talmud which relate to its cultis^ation. These 

 facts lead us to suppose that the Indians employed 

 rice after the Chinese, and that it spread still later 

 towards the Euphrates — earlier, however, than the Aryan 

 invasion into India. A thousand years elapsed between 

 the existence of this cultivation in Babylonia and its 

 transportation into Syria, whence its introduction into 

 Egypt after an interval of probably two or three centuries. 

 There is no trace of rice among the grains or paintings of 

 ancient Egypt.^ Strabo, who had visited this country 

 as well as Syria, does not say that rice was cultivated in 

 Egypt in his time, but that the Garam antes ^ grew it, 

 and this people is believed to have inhabited an oasis to 

 the south of Cartlmge. It is possible that they received 

 it from Syria. At all events, Egypt could not lung fail 



* PiddingtoTi, Indev ; Hehn, Culturpflanzen^ edit. 3, p. 437. 

 2 Theophrastus, Hist., lib. iv. cap. 4, 10. 



^ Strabo, Geographic, Tardieu's translation, lib. xy. cap. 1, § 18; 

 lib. XV. cap. 1, § 53. 



* Eeynier, ^Vonomie des Arahes et des Juifs (1820), p. 450 ; Ecmomie 

 Puhlique et Rurale des £gyptiens et des Carthaijinois (181:3), p. 324. 



* Unger mentions none ; Birch, in 1878, furnishes a note to Wilkin- 

 son's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Eijyptiuns, ii. p. 402, " TJiere 

 is no proof of the cultivation of rice, of which no grains have been found." 



® Beynier, ihid. 



