6.52 ZINGIBERACE^. 



Melle (Meli or Melly), formerly extending over the upper Niger region, 

 about in 4° E, long., and then inhabited by the Mandingos, now by the 

 Fulbe or Fullan. Messena is their most considerable place. In that 

 region Amomnyjn Melegueta may be indigenous, or the spice, being 

 formerly'- exported from the coast by way of Melle, took its commercial 

 name in allusion to the latter. 



History — There is no evidence that the ancients were acquainted 

 with the seeds called Grains of Paradise; nor can we find any reference 

 to them earlier than an incidental mention under their African name, 

 in the account^ of a curious festival held at Treviso in A.D. 1214: it 

 was a sort of tournament, during which a sham fortress, held by twelve 

 noble ladies and their attendants, was besieged and stormed by assail- 

 ants armed with flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, perfumes, and spices, 

 amongst which last figure — Meleyetoi ! 



After this period there are many notices, showing the seeds to have 

 been in general use. Nicolas Myrepsus,^ physician at the court of the 

 Emperor John III. at Nicoea, in the 13th century, prescribed Meveyerai; 

 and his contemporary, Simon of Genoa,^ at Rome, names the same drug 

 as Melegete or Melegette. Grana Paradisi are enumerated among spices 

 sold at Lyons'* in 1245, and were used about the same time by the 

 Welsh Physicians of Myddvai under the name Grawn Pari's.^ They 

 also occur as Greyn Paradijs in a tariff of duties levied at Dordrecht 

 in Holland*^ in 1358. And again among the spices used by John, king 

 of France, when in England, a.d. 1359-60, Grainne de Paradis is re- 

 peatedly mentioned.'' 



In the earliest times the drug was conveyed by the long land 

 journey from the Mandingo country through the desert to the 

 Mediterranean port, Monte di Barca (Mundibarca), on the coast of 

 Tripoli. There the spice was shipped by the Italian.s, and being the 

 produce of an unknown region and held in great esteem, it acquired 

 the name of Grains of Paradise,^ or also, as already stated at page 

 650, that of Seniina Cardamomi Majoris. That they came from 

 Melli is expressly stated also by Leonhard Fuchs.^ Small quantities of 

 the drug still reach Tripoli in the same way. 



Towards the middle of the 14th century, there began to be direct 

 commercial intercourse with tropical Western Africa. Margry^** relates 

 that ships were sent thither from Dieppe in 1364, and too& cargoes of 

 ivory and malagiiette from near the mouth of the river Cestos, now 

 Sestros. A century later the coast was visited by the Portuguese, 

 who termed it Terra de malaguet. The celebrated Columbus also, 

 who traded to the coast of Guinea, called it Costa di Maniguetta. 

 Soon after this period the spice became a monopoly of the kings of 

 Portugal. 



* Rolandini Patavini Chronica — Pertz, ' Meddygon Myddfai (see Appendix) 283. 

 3fonumenta Germanke historka ; scriptores, 286. 



xix. (1866) 45-46. — Yet qdfala, occurring ^ Sartorius und Lappenberg, Geschichte 



in Edrisi, probably means grains of para- der Deutschen Hansa, ii. 448. 



disc. "^ Doiiet d'Arcq, 219, 266— see p. 533, 



^ De Compoaitione Medicamentorum ; de note 2. 



antidotis, cap. xxii. ^ G. di Barros, Asia, Venet. lofil. 33 (65). 



3 Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510. 19. 42. ^ De componendorum miscendorumqiie me- 



* Bibliothek d. lit. Vereins, Stuttgart, xvi. dicamentorum ratione, libr. iv. Lugduni, 

 p. xxiii. 1556. 50. 



^^ Quoted at p. 589, note 4. 



