422 
THE HISTORY OF THE SUGAR CANE. 
bably be raised ere long above that of any 
other country in the world. In tracing the 
history of sugar, we naturally refer to the 
most ancient writings in Sacred Writ. The 
first passage in which it is mentioned, is 
Exodus, XXX. 23, wherein Moses is commanded 
to make an ointmentwith myrrh, cinnamon, 
kend,and cassia. Comparing this passage with 
that in Jeremiah, vi. 20, we findkene men- 
tioned as comingfrom a distant country. * ‘To 
what purpose cometh there to me incense 
from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far 
country.” If any credit bedue to etymology, 
the word kend denotes the sugar cane, 
from the Latin word cana and the English 
word cane. This sugar cane must have 
come therefore from the East Indies. Strabo 
relates that Nearchus found it in the East 
Indies in the year before Christ 325. Dios- 
corides says that there is a kind of honey 
called saccharine which is found in India. 
Pliny alludes to its being produced in India. 
Arrian, in his Periplus of the Red Sea, men- 
tions sacchar as an article of commerce 
from India to the Red Sea. Thunberg 
found it in Japan; Marco Polo found it in 
abundance in Bengal. Porter, the author of 
one of the works under review, says that the 
Persians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Greci- 
ans, who went through the greater part of 
Asia, make no mention of the sugar cane 
before the period when merchants first began 
to trade to India. The merchants among 
the Jews, Christians, Romans,and Mahome- 
dans, learnt from the Indians, who carried 
sugar to Mustino Ormus, that it was obtained 
from a reed: upon this tradition it is stated 
that the inhabitants of Asia sought among 
their reeds for that one which yielded so 
precious a product, and found it in a kind 
of bamboo called mambu, the young suckers 
of which are filled with an agreeable juice 
alluded to by Lucian, ^^quique bibunt tene- 
rddulces ah arundine succos.-’ It is de- 
scribed to be a kind of honey which formed 
itself without the assistance of bees, (Strabo.) 
That it was a shower from heaven which 
fell upon the leaves of the reed (Seneca), and 
that it was a concretion of the reed in the 
manner of gum, (commentators on Pliny.) I 
The first correct account of traffic in sugar j! 
is given by Marco Polo: the merchants, ij 
who had before his time gone to Ormus ! 
for the purpose of traffic, with the Indians, ' 
brought away the sugar cane and silk j 
worm from thence ; thus the sugar cane 
was introduced into Egypt and Arabia. I 
Our authority for this fact is the works j 
of Bartheraa, Giovanni, Lioni,^&c. It is 
stated that, at the end of the fourteenth cen- ! 
tury, the cultivation of the sugar cane and [ 
the manufacture of its juice were known ; 
generally throughout Arabia, Egypt, and 
several other parts of Africa. According to | 
Giovanni, in the sixteenth century an ex ten- ' 
sive trade in sugar was carried on in Arabia 
Felix, Nubia, Egypt, Morocco, and Ethiopia. , 
We are ignorant as to the date of itsimporta- 1 
tion into Europe. We find William the Se- 
cond, king of Sicily, giving to the monks of | 
St. Bennett a mill for grinding sugar canes. , 
In 1420, Don Henry introduced the sugar I 
cane in the island of Madeira from Sicily, 
where it was successfully cultivated, as 
well as in the Canaries. The Portuguese 
began the cultivation of the cane in the 
island of St. Thomas in 1820: this colony 
had more than 60 sugar manufactories 
(Racueil des Voyages). It was attempted to 
plant it in Provence, but the cold of winter 
destroyed it; it was, however, introduced in 
Spain, where sugar manufactories are at the 
present period. It was after Columbus 
discovered the new world, that Pierre 
d’Etienne took the sugarcane to Hispaniola, 
since called St. Domingo, and now Hayti. 
A Catalonian, named Michel Ballestro, was 
the first who expressed juice from it ; and 
Gonzalves deVelosa was the first who concen- 
trated this into sugar. At St. Domingo it grew 
to the size of a man’s waist, where in 1518 
there were 28 manufactories. On the 
authority of MacLeod it is stated that its 
cultivation extended with such prodigious 
rapidity,and its produce was so considerable, 
that the cost of the magnificent palaces of Ma- 
drid and Toledo, which were erected in the 
reign of Charles the Fifth, was entirely de- 
frayed by the proceeds of the port duties on 
