392 SPICES 



CHAP. 



Sanskrit Sanjabil, through the Arabic Zanzabil. The 

 Greeks and Komans appear to have obtained it from 

 the Arab traders to the East, who doubtless brought 

 it from India. Its original home is unknown, as no one 

 seems ever to have met with it in a wild state anywhere, 

 and it was very early distributed over tropical Asia, 

 from India to China. The spice was well known in" 

 /""England before the Norman conquest, and in the thir- 

 teenth and fourteenth centuries was nearly as common 

 in trade as pepper, costing no more at that time, when 

 spices were expensive luxuries, than Is. 7d. per lb., or 

 about the price of a sheep. 



In the fourteenth century the Italians classified the 

 spice in three forms : 



1. Belledi or Baladi, country or wild ginger. 



2. Colombino, i.e. from Columbian (Quilon, in Southern 

 India). 



3. Mecchins, i.e. imported through Mecca. 



Marco Polo is probably the first traveller who saw 

 the plant alive, but he does not describe it (1280-1290). 

 He met with it in China, Malabar, and Sumatra. It is 

 first described by John of Montecorvino in 1292, and 

 by the traveller Nicolas Conti. 



Preserved ginger in syrup, known as green ginger, 

 was imported into Europe as a sweetmeat as early _as_ 

 the Middle Ages. As the rhizomes of ginger are very 

 easily transported in a living state for considerable 

 distances, it is not to be wondered at that the plant 

 was introduced into America very soon after the first 

 discovery of the New World, and before any other 

 Oriental spice. It was brought to New Spain (Mexico) 

 by Francisco de Mendoga, and the rhizomes were ex- 

 ported from San Domingo as early as 1585, and from 

 Barbados in 1694; and Kenny (History of Jamaica) 

 says that, in 1547, 22,053 cwts. were exported from 

 Jamaica to Spain. Since that time Jamaica has been a 

 continuous source of ginger, for which it has always 

 been famous. 



