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159 
also met with under the forms of Garophul, Karpophul, 
and Garofalo, it is probably a word of Asiatic origin 
Hellenised. 
Kumphius, in the Herbarium Amboinense^ gives 
the words karumpfel, calafur, or caraful as Arabic 
words from which caryophyllus may be derived. 
It is indeed probable that the Arab traders, who 
doubtless introduced it to Europe, introduced the 
Arabic name with it. 
Garcia da Orta, in the Historia aromatum, says 
that neither Dioscorides nor Galen mention it, but 
Kosmas Indicopleustes, in a.d. 547, mentions it as an 
import from China to Ceylon, and says it was thence 
imported to other parts of the world. It seems, there- 
fore, that the Chinese, who traded much with the Eastern 
islands, were the first to discover and use the spice. 
From the eighth century onwards it was regularly 
imported into Europe, but was very costly, being valued 
in 1265 at from 10s. to 12s. a pound. 
Marco Polo, like other writers of his date, describes 
it as being obtained from Java, and also from Kaindu, 
a part of China. 
Nicolo Conti, a Venetian merchant (1424 to 1448), 
was the first to discover the real source of the spice, 
saying that it comes from Banda ; but more correct 
localisation was obtained by the Portuguese in the 
sixteenth century, and Pigafetta described the plant 
more fully in 1521. Garcia da Orta says that in his 
time it was not cultivated anywhere, but that it grew 
in the Moluccas, in Gilolo, and also in Ceylon and 
some other places, but it was not so productive any- 
where as it was in the Moluccas. Probably, like Marco 
Polo, he mistook the ports whence it was shipped, 
Ceylon and the other places, for the home of the plant. 
It was exported to Malacca, as were the other Eastern 
spices, for shipment to Europe. The Portuguese held 
control of the Spice Islands till 1605, when they were 
expelled by the Dutch, and by this time the plant had 
been introduced into Amboyna, Ley Timor, and Uliasser 
