Edible Products. 



1S2 



[March 1907. 



occurrence in Peruvian tombs of seeds left with the dead as food for the departed 

 soul on its journey. In the tombs at Ancon, interments of not later date than 

 Pizzaro's conquest of Peru, no seed except that of the maize is more abundant 

 (Rochebrnne in Actes Soc. Linn. Bordeaux, ser. 4, III., p. 350). 



The French colonists sent by Admiral Coligny to the Brazilian coast became 

 acquainted with it in 1555, and Jean de Lery described it ummistakably. Ficalho 

 (Plantas Uteis du Africa Portugueza, Lisbon, 1884, p. 136) shows that the first distinct 

 mention of its cultivation in Africa is by Andre Alvares de Almada who published 

 in 1594 an account of travels on the Senegambia coast undertaken thirty years 

 earlier. It was seen by him in considerable quantity in the Archipelago of Bujagoz 

 (Bissagos). Portuguese voyagers of the sixteenth century were ever ready to leave 

 economic products on new shores. The work of colonising St. Helena was begun by 

 them at its very discovery (Melliss, St Helena, p. 2) and probably in the same way 

 Arachis was left on the shores nearer home which we know they frequented for tAVO 

 centuries from this date in pursuit of slaves. Hawkins, our English navigator, led 

 slave-hunting expeditions to this part of Africa, and in 1564 visited the Bissagos 

 Archipelago for the purpose ; the narrative of his second voyage frequently mentions 

 the Portuguese. These facts are given because Ficalho argues the possibility that the 

 ground-nut is alike native in America and Africa, and in order to show that between 

 the date of the discovery of America and of Alvares' travels, there is time for the 

 establishment of Ai'achis in frequented parts. Then, as later with the Arabs, it was 

 the practice of the slavers to ally themselves with a native king in order to raid 

 another's territory. 



Clusius (Rariorum Plantarum Historia, II., p. 79, 1601) informs us that the 

 slavers took as food for their captives on the voyage from the Guinea Coast to 

 Lisbon, roots of the sweet potato, which is an American plant, " besides certain nuts" 

 and these nuts Sir Hans Sloane (The Natural History of Jamica I., p. 184, London, 

 1707) identifies as fruits of Arachis, Though Clusius does not give information which 

 puts Sloane's identification beyond doubt, the fact that in the latter's day these 

 seeds were used " to feed the Negroes in their voyage from Guinea to Jamaica" is 

 itself strong evidence. And though in 1707 the earth-nuts thus used were brought 

 from Africa with the slaves, a century earlier they were evidently brought from the 

 West Indies (St. Thomas etc.) with the roots of the sweet potato. The spread of 

 Arachis in Africa must have been rapid. It is now grown from the Mediterranean 

 almost to the extreme south. Ficalho adduces this wide extension in the continent 

 as an argument against an introduction subsequent to the discovery of America. 

 But other undoubtedly American species have now a similar rauge, having reached 

 the very heart of the continent from the east and west coasts (P. Ascherson in 

 Sitzungsbericht d. Gesellschaft Naturforschende Freunde zu Berlin, 1887, pp. 141-157), 

 nor are parts unknown to which its extension has only just reached (Stuhlmann, 

 Mit Emin Pascha, Berlin, 1894, p. 498) 



Nearly as early, some region in Malaya or South China seems to have received 

 the plant, which spread rapidly and deceived Loureiro into calling it, in 1790, a native 

 of Cochin China ; Rumpf saw it in Amboyna and figures it (1691) as Chamcebalanus 

 japonicus. The people of South China seem to have early taken to its cultivation, 

 a nd thence it spread to Japan and Bengal, getting for itself in both countries, as 

 well as in Java (Hasskarl, Hortus Bogor., p. 233), a name meaning "Chinese bean"" 

 It is interesting to note in passing that, according to Bretschneider (Study of Chinese 

 botanical works, p. 18) one of its name in China is " Foreign bean." Africa seems to 

 have sent it to the Bombay coast of India a century ago, and about Bombay it has 

 the nam of " Mozambique gram" (Dymock, Materia Medica India ed. 2, p. 247), 

 Madagascar Mauritius, Reunion, &c, have probably received it ficm the same source. 



