There is nothing said in these works of the plant growing wild in China; on the contrary, the origin in Cochin-China, indicated by Loureiro, finds an unexpected confirmation. It seems to me most probable that its primitive range extended from Bengal to Cochin-China. It may have included the Sunda Isles and the Moluccas, whose climate is very similar; but there are quite as many reasons for believing that it was early introduced into these from Cochin-China or the Malay peninsula. The propagation of the sugar-cane from India westward is well known. The Greco-Roman world had a vague idea of the reed (_calamus_) which the Indians delighted to chew, and from which they obtained sugar.[769] On the other hand, the Hebrew writings do not mention sugar;[770] whence we may infer that the cultivation of the sugar-cane did not exist west of the Indus at the time of the Jewish captivity at Babylon. The Arabs in the Middle Ages introduced it into Egypt, Sicily, and the south of Spain,[771] where it flourished until the abundance of sugar in the colonies caused it to be abandoned. Don Henriquez transported the sugar-cane from Sicily to Madeira, whence it was taken to the Canaries in 1503.[772] Hence it was introduced into Brazil in the beginning of the sixteenth century.[773] It was taken to St. Domingo about 1520, and shortly afterwards to Mexico;[774] to Guadeloupe in 1644, to Martinique about 1650, to Bourbon when the colony was founded.[775] The variety known as _Otahiti_, which is not, however, wild in that island, and which is also called _Bourbon_, was introduced into the French and English colonies at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century.[776] The processes of cultivation and preparation of the sugar are described in a number of works, among which the following may be recommended: de Tussac, _Flore des Antilles_, 3 vols., Paris; vol. i. pp. 151-182; and Macfadyen, in Hooker’s _Botanical Miscellany_, 1830, vol. i. pp. 103-116. CHAPTER III. PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FLOWERS, OR FOR THE ORGANS WHICH ENVELOP THEM. +Clove+—_Caryophyllus aromaticus_, Linnæus. The clove used for domestic purposes is the calix and flower-bud of a plant belonging to the order of Myrtaceæ. Although the plant has been often described and very well drawn from cultivated specimens, some doubt remains as to its nature when wild. I spoke of it in my _Geographical Botany_ in 1855, but it does not appear that the question has made any further progress since then, which induces me to repeat here what I said then.