70 



TRAVELS IK THE EAST IKDIAX ARCHIPELAGO. 



ing down the sap of the gomuti-palm (Barasaus go- 

 mutt).* 



Sugar from cane was first "broiiglit to Europe 

 by tlie Ai'aliB, who, as we know from the Chi- 

 nese annals, frequently visited Canpu, a port on 

 Hanchow Bay, a short distance south of Shanghai, 

 Dioscorides, who lived in the early part of the first 

 century, appears to he the earliest wi'iter in the West 

 who has mentioned it. He calls it sacGlmron^ and 

 says that " in consL^tence it was like salt" Pliny, 

 who lived a little later in the same century, thus de- 

 8cri]>es the article seen in the Roman markets in his 

 day : " Saecharon is a honey which forms on reeds, 

 white like gum, which cnmibles under the teeth, and 

 of which the largest pieces are of the size of a fil- 

 bert," (Book xii., chap. 8.) 



This is a perfect description of the sugar or rock- 

 candy that I found the Chinese manufacturing over 

 the southern and central parts of China during my 

 long journey ings through that empire, and at the same 

 time it is not in the least applicable to the dark- 

 brown, crushed sugar made in India. 



* Ifr. Crawfurd states that it is a BimUar product made from the sap 

 of the Palmyra palm {BoramtJi^fiabeUif&rniis), and not the sugar of the 

 oano, that forma the saccharitio consumption of tropical Asia, i. o., among 

 the Codiia'Chinese, the Siamese, the iiurmese, and the inhabitants of 

 Southern India, including the Telinga nation who introduced Hinduism 

 and Sanaorit nAines among these people, and prohably were the first to 

 teach them how to obtain sagar from the aap of paha-trees. 



