392 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
Sanskrit Sanjabil, through the Arabic Zanzabil. The 
Greeks and Komans appear to have obtained it from 
the Arab traders to the East, who doubtless brought 
it from India. Its original home is unknown, as no one 
seems ever to have met with it in a wild state anywhere, 
and it was very early distributed over tropical Asia, 
from India to China. The spice was well known in 
England before the Norman conquest, and in the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth centuries was nearly as common 
in trade as pepper, costing no more at that time, when 
spices were expensive luxuries, than Is. 7d. per lb., or 
about the price of a sheep. 
In the fourteenth century the Italians classified the 
spice in three forms : — 
1. Belledi or Baladi, country or wild ginger. 
2. Colomhino, i.e. from Columbum (Quilon, in Southern 
India). 
3. Mecchins, i.e. imported through Mecca. 
Marco Polo is probably the first traveller who saw 
the plant alive, but he does not describe it (1280-1290). 
He met with it in China, Malabar, and Sumatra. It is 
first described by John of Montecorvino in 1292, and 
by the traveller Nicolas Conti. 
Preserved ginger in syrup, known as green ginger, 
was imported into Europe as a sweetmeat as early as 
the Middle Ages. As the rhizomes of ginger are very 
easily transported in a living state for considerable 
distances, it is not to be wondered at that the plant 
was introduced into America very soon after the first 
discovery of the New World, and before any other 
Oriental spice. It was brought to New Spain (Mexico) 
by Francisco de Mendo 9 a, and the rhizomes were ex- 
ported from San Domingo as early as 1585, and from 
Barbados in 1694; and Kenny [History of Jamaica) 
says that, in 1547, 22,053 cwts. were exported from 
Jamaica to Spain. Since that time Jamaica has been a 
continuous source of ginger, for which it has always 
been famous. 
