CHAP. 17.—SUGAR.
Arabia, too, produces sugar;[1] but that of India is the most
esteemed. This substance is a kind of honey, which collects
in reeds, white, like gum, and brittle to the teeth. The
larger pieces are about the size of a filbert; it is only employed, however, in medicine.
1. "Saccharon." Fée suggests that Pliny alludes to a peculiar kind
of crystallized sugar, that is found in the bamboo cane, though, at
the same time, he thinks it not improbable that he may have heard of
the genuine sugar-cane; as Strabo, B. xv., speaks of a honey found in
India, prepared without the aid of bees, and Lucan has the line—
"Quique bibunt tenerâ dulces ab arundine succos,"
evidently referring to a sugar in the form of a syrup, and not of crystal,
like that of the Bambos arundinacea. It is by no means improbable, that
Pliny, or rather Dioscorides, from whom he copies, confuses the two kinds
of sugar; as it is well known that the Saccharum officinarum, or sugarcane, has been cultivated from a very early period in Arabia Felix.