THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 441 



But it was towards the thirteenth century tliat the mei'- 

 chants who imitated Marco Polo, by bringing the products 

 of India overland to Europe, introduced the plant into 

 Nubia and Egypt, from whence, in the fourteenth century, 

 it was carried to Sicily, Syria, and Madeira. From thence 

 it was finally transported to America soon after its dis- 

 covery. 



Another grass, maize {Zea Mays), also contains sugar in 

 its stem, but it was not so much on account of this, as for 

 the sake of its beauty and its use as an article of food, 

 that it became almost sacred among the ancient races in 

 America. The Peruvian virgins themselves, devoted to 

 the worship of the sun, made bread from it which the 

 Incas offered as a sacrifice. And when the sacred plant 

 failed in their gardens, they substituted gold and silver 

 imitations. ^ 



Manna, also valuable in many respects, is the ready- 

 prepared sugar furnished by a tree. It runs and hardens 

 on the trunk and branches of the flowering-ash, which is 



^ M;iize evidently comes originally from America, though it is erroneously 

 called Turkish and Indian wheat, under the supposition that it is indigenous to 

 these countries. If this beautiful gramineous plant had belonged to the old 

 continent, the ancient naturalists and authorities on farming would not have 

 failed to mention it, and yet it is not spoken of in the writings of Theophrastus, 

 Pliny, Columella, and Dioscorides. And while no author names it before the 

 discovery of Columbus, we see, on the contrary, the first describers of America 

 constantly speaking of it. 



Joseph d'Acosta affirms that maize was one of the principal articles of food 

 among the savages of the new continent long before it was conquered. At the 

 time when Cortez reached Mexico this grass was sacred, being regarded as holy 

 food. Montezuma sent loaves of it, steeped in human blood, to the celebrated 

 conqueror. At certain public ceremonies the Mexicans made images of their 

 gods in maize paste, and after carrying them through the streets, divided them 

 among the people, so that every one might have a share in the sanctified food. 

 When Pizarro made himself master of Peru similar piactices still existed. The 

 Incas offered as a sacrifice loaves made from this cereal, which the virgins conse- 

 crated to the worship of the sun, hardened with the blood of young infants, 

 whose faces they lacerated in order to prepare this food. 



