COJ^DIMEJ^TS PRODUCED IN THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



559 



CHAPTER VII. 



SUGAR— COF^'EE-CHOCGLATE— COCA— SPICES. 



Sugar: Its Importance — The Home of the Sugar-Cane — Ancient Theories about Sugar — The 

 Introduction of the Cane into Europe and America — Characteristics of the Plant — Mode of 

 Cultivation. — Coffee: Its Home — Introduction into Egypt and Europe, and elsewhere — 

 Present Coffee Countries — Coffee Culture in Brazil — Agassiz's Description of a Coffee 

 Estate— The West Indies and Ceylon — The Coffee-Plant — Methods of Preparing the Berries 

 —The Enemies of the Plant— The Golunda— The Coffee Bug— The Coffee Moth.— Carao, 

 or Chocolate: Its Culture and Preparation. — Coca: Description of the Plant — Mode of its Use 

 — Its Effects — Indian superstitions connected with it. — Cinnamon: Known to the Ancients — 

 Cinnamon in Ceylon — Mode of Culture and Preparation — General Account of this Spice — 

 Nutmegs and Cloves — Enormities of the Dutch Monopoly — Pepper — Pimento — Ginger. 



THERE is a class of products of which, although not strictly articles of food,, 

 enter largely into human consumption either as furnishing beverages, or as con- 

 diments to give flavor to food, or as luxuries. With the exception of tea, which 

 belongs to the temperate zone, these belong almost exclusively to the Tropical World ; 

 and they rank among the most important articles of commerce. We shall enumerate 

 the principal of these, viz. : Sugar, Coffee, Cacao, Coca, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Nut- 

 megs, Cloves, Pepper, and Pimento. 



Next after the great cereals, which have been described, sugar will rank as the 

 most valuable product of the vegetable kingdom. It is produced in greater or less 

 quantities from the juices of most fruits and vegetables, and the sap of many kinds of 

 trees. We shall, however, speak only of that derived from the sugar-cane, a plant so 

 exclusively tropical that its cultivation increases greatly in cost the moment we enter 

 the confines of the temperate zones. Even in the great sugar region of Louisiana, 

 with all the advantages of capital aided by science, the production of sugar is only 

 rendered profitable by the imposition of protective duties upon that of foreign countries. 



The original home of this plant — for which, doubtless, the lively fancy of the 

 ancient Greeks, had they been better acquainted with it, would have invented a 

 peculiar god, as for the vine or the cereals — is most likely to be sought for in South- 

 eastern Asia, where the Chinese seem to have been the first people that learnt the art 

 to multiply it by culture, and to extract the sugar from its juice. From China its 

 cultivation spread westwards to India and Arabia, at a time unknown to history; and 

 the conquests of Alexander the Great first made Europe acquainted with the sweet- 

 juiced cane, while sugar itself had long before been imported by the Phoenicians as a 

 rare production of the Eastern world. At a later period, both the plant and its 

 produce are mentioned by several classical authors. They were, however, ignorant 



