IO HISTORY OF THE [book v, 
great staple commodity, sugar;—a plant which, 
from its commercial importance and general utility, 
we may venture to pronounce one of the most va¬ 
luable in the creation. The ancient name of the 
cane was Saccharum. This word was corrupted, 
in monkish Latin, into Zucharum , and afterwards 
into Zucra. By the Spaniards it was converted into 
Agucar , from whence Sugar . The plant is a na¬ 
tive of the east, and was probably cultivated in 
India and Arabia time immemorial. The sweet- 
cane is mentioned twice in the Old Testament* as 
an article of merchandize; and there is a passage 
in Dioscorides which seems to imply that the art of 
granulating the juice by evaporation was practised 
in his time; for he describes sugar as having the 
appearance of salt, and of being brittle to the teeth, 
Salis modo coactum est dentibus ut sal fragile. 
Lucan, enumerating the eastern auxiliaries of Pom- 
pey, describes a people who used the cane-juice as 
a common drink, 
%dque bibunt tenerd dulces ab arundine succos. 
Lafitau conjectures, however, that the plant it¬ 
self was unknown in Christendom until the time 
of the Croisades. Its cultivation, and the method 
of expressing and purifying the juice, as practised 
by the inhabitants of Acra and Tripoli, are descri- 
* Isaiah, c. xliii. v. 24. 
Jeremiah, c. vi. v. 20, 
