HISTOEICAL DATA WANTING. 261 



IMPROBABILITY OF SPANISH INTRODUCTION. 



The existence of the banana in prehistoric America has been obscured 

 by the record of an introduction from the Canary Islands to Santo 

 Domingo in 1516; but neither history nor tradition has given any 

 intimation that cocoanuts were brought by the Spaniards from the Old 

 World to the New. Moreover, there are several other facts which 

 seem to preclude belief in such a transfer. The banana is supposed 

 to have reached the Canaries from West Africa; but the cocoanut has 

 never been found to thrive in the Canaries, nor in any part of the 

 Mediterranean region, and it is not supposed to have existed in West 

 Africa in the early years of the sixteenth century, but is believed to 

 have been carried thither, subsequent^, from America. It is also well 

 known that the papal division of the "Indies" between the Portuguese 

 and the Spanish gave the latter no access to the Indian Ocean by way 

 of the Cape of Good Hope. Thus it would seem that if the Spaniards 

 learned about cocoanuts, and obtained them to plant in their new pos- 

 sessions, it must have been from their Portuguese rivals. Such an 

 event is highly improbable, and if it had occurred would doubtless 

 have been made a subject of historical record and comment. 



But even though arrangements might have been made for securing 

 nuts in this manner, it would have been very difficult or impossible to 

 keep them alive long enough to survive the voyage from the East 

 Indies to the West. In spite of its size the cocoanut is a rather deli- 

 cate and short-lived seed, and it is very improbable that at that time 

 any Europeans had the knowledge and skill necessary to select the 

 nuts and give them proper care on the journe}^. 



If the cocoanut had been established in America in spite of these 

 difficulties, it could onty have been because somebody placed a high 

 value upon it. The success of the effort would have been a matter of 

 much self-congratulation by the Spaniards, and would scarcely have 

 escaped record by some of the numerous early chroniclers of New 

 Spain, several of whom show a lively interest in recounting the impor- 

 tation of European plants. To judge from their reports to their sov- 

 ereigns, the early agents of the Spanish crown in America would have 

 lost no opportunhry of realizing full value for any special service of 

 this kind. 



Pickering was apparently the originator * of the statement, repeated 

 in other compilations, that cocoanuts ""were seen by Columbus on his 

 fourth voyage, in Central America.' 1 Unfortunately, it seems to be 

 impossible to verify this interesting information. A careful reading 

 of the Churchill version of the life of Columbus by his son Ferdinand, 

 which is indicated by Pickering as the authority for his statement, 

 fails to reveal any direct indication of the cocoanut. Although the 

 existence of seven kinds of palms is noted, they are not described in 



1 Chronological History of Plants, p. 428 (1879). 



