One thing remains to be noticed; and that is, that preserved lemon peel was considered as one of the best digestives, and that doctors recommend it to weak and delicate persons.[XIII-36] ORANGE TREE. If confidence is to be placed in some authors, the native land of the orange tree would appear to be the gardens of the Hesperides, so remarkable in mythologic ages, and it was found also in Western Africa, Mauritania, and the Fortunate Islands; to which they add those mountains of Atlas so little known in a botanical point of view, notwithstanding the daring excursions of several learned men. According to other observers, it originally came from the southern countries of China,[XIII-37] from the islands of the Indian Archipelago, or even from that portion of the globe called Oceania. One incontestable fact is, that writers of antiquity were completely ignorant of the existence of this superb tree. Had they known it, its majestic height, the dark green of its foliage, the suavity of its flowers, its fruit, so fine, bright, and so flattering to the taste, could not have failed to inspire them with brilliant pages. Theophrastus, and the Latin geoponics, never would have neglected to speak of the luxury and fecundity it displays, even in the season of hoary frost. Besides, the name of _Portughan_, which is given to the orange by the Arabs--a name foreign to their language, but which is again heard among the Italians, Spaniards, and even in the southern provinces of France--is it not an indication that the introduction of this tree has some connection with the Portuguese voyages to India, particularly those of Juan de Castro in the year 1520? It is the Portuguese who have planted the orange tree in the Canaries, at Madeira, where it was supposed to be indigenous on account of the vigorous vegetation it there displays: it is the Portuguese who have introduced this tree into all countries washed by the Mediterranean: and it is still the Portuguese who have furnished the parent suckers, whence the Spaniards have been enabled to form their immense groves in Andalusia and Algarvia.[XIII-38]