132 NATURAL AND ECONOMICAL HISTORY 
troduced by the Chinese, under the auspices chiefly of 
Europeans, and in times comparatively very recent."" I 
am aware, however, that Humboldt infers, from some 
Chinese paintings which he saw at Lima, representing the 
different processes for extracting sugar, that this art is ex- 
tremely ancient in that country.- — (Essai Politique sur la 
Nouvelle Espagne^ torn. ii. p. 425, 4to.) 
It is stated, upon the authority of the Crusaders, that 
the inhabitants of TripoH, in Syria, were acquainted with 
the art of extracting sugar from the sugar-cane, as early as 
1108. The process they practised was extremely rude, 
and consisted in pounding the cane in a mortar with a 
pestle. At this time, they do not appear to have been ac- 
quainted With the means of employing fire in the making 
of sugar. The expressed juice was set aside until crystals 
formed in it *. For a long time, sugar appears to have, in 
Europe, been confined to the apothecary's shop ; and, by 
some of the older authors, it is recommended as a good sub- 
stitute for honey, to render nauseating medicines palata- 
ble ; this seems to have been the chief purpose for which it 
was, during a considerable period, employed. Sugar did 
not become general, as an article of food in Europe, until 
it was extensively cultivated in the West Indies and Ame- 
rica -f-. 
* Falconer's Sketch of the History of Sugar. 
■{" Neither sugar nor the sugar-cane is mentioned in Scripture. The word 
Sweet-cane, which we find in two places of the Old Testament, Isaiah xliii. 
24., and Jeremiah vi. 20-, seems to express a different substance, most pro- 
bably cinnamon. In both passages, sweet«cane is mentioned as an article of 
merchandize, and not as a native of Judea, which the sugar-cane seems to 
be. It likewise may be inferred, that the substance here meant was con- 
secrated to religious uses. Now, we knov/ that, under the Levitical law, 
cinnamon was required to compose the holy oil for anointing the tabernacle. 
Europe is indebted to the conquests of Alexander, for a knowledge of sugar. 
Sprenoel* 
