INFLUENCE OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGNS. 159 



iy-embellislied tropical nature speedily yielded the Gieeks en- 

 joyments 01 another kind. The gigantic forms of hitherto 

 unknown animals and plants filled their imaginations with 

 the most exciting images. Writers, whose diy scientific style 

 is usually devoid of all animation, became poetic when they 

 described the characteristics of animals, as, for instance, ele- 

 phants ; or when they spoke of the height of trees, whose 

 summits can not be reached by the arrow in its flight, and 

 whose leaves are larger than the shields of the infantry ; of* 

 " the bamboo, a light, feathery, tree-like grass," " each of 

 whose jointed parts (internodia) may serve for a many-oared 

 keel ;" or of the Irtiian fig-tree, that takes root by its branches, 

 and whose stem has a diameter of twenty-eight feet, and 

 which, as Onesicritus remarked, with much truth to nature, 

 forms " a leafy canopy similar to a tent, supported by numer- 

 ous pillars." The tall, arborescent ferns, which, according 

 to my opinion, constitute the greatest ornament of tropical 

 scenery, are never mentioned by Alexander's companions,* al- 

 though they speak of the noble, fan-like umbrella palm, and 

 the delicate and ever-fresh green of the cultivated banana.t 



The knowledge of a great portion of the earth may now be 

 said to have been opened for the first time. The objective 

 world began to assume a preponderating force oyer that of 

 mere subjective creation ; and while the fruitful seeds yielded 

 by the language and literature of the Greeks were scattered 



* Humboldt, De distrib. Geogr. Plantarum, p. 178. 



t I have often correspoiided, since the year 1827, with Lassen on the 

 remarkable passage in Phny, xii., 6 : " Major aha (arbor") pomo et su- 

 avitate praicelle^itior, quo sapienies Indorum vivunt. Folium alas avi- 

 um imitatur, longitudine trium cubitorum, latitudine duflm. Fi'uctum 

 cortice mittit, admirabilem succi dulcedine ut uno quaternos satiet. 

 Arbori nomen palee, pomo arience.^' The following is the result of my 

 learned friend's investigation: " Amarasinha places the banana {mnsa, 

 pisang) at the head of all nutritive plants. Among the many Sanscrit 

 names which he adduces are varanahuscha, bhanuphala (sun fruit), and 

 moito, whence the Arabic mauza. Phqla {pala) is fruit in general, and 

 it is therefore only by a misunderstanding that it has been taken for the 

 name of the plant. In Sanscrit, varana without buscJia is not used as 

 the name of the banana, although the abbreviation may have been 

 characteristic of the popular language. Varana would be in Greek 

 ovapeva, which is. certainly not very far removed from ariena." (Com- 

 pare Lassen, Ind. AUerthumsknnde, bd. i., p. 262; my Essai Politique 

 tur la Nouv. Espagne, t. ii., 1827, p. 382 ; and Relat. Hist., t. i. p. 491.) 

 The chemical connection of the nourishing amylum with sugar was de- 

 tected both by Prosper Alpinus and Abd-Allatif, and they sought to ex 

 plain the ongin of the banana by the insertion of the sugar-cane, oi th<i 

 nweet date fru.t, into the root of the colocasia (Abd-Allatif, Relation dl 

 Vji^'y^He, trad, par Silvestre de Sacy, p. i\S and 105). 



