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The existence of these legends with regard to maize is curious, because no similar legends, except in China, exist in the Old World with regard to the first cultivation of wheat, barley, and rye ; and the American legends have not found their way to those remote parts of Asia and Africa where maize has certainly been grown for centuries, although legends are generally caught up eagerly and passed from mouth to mouth among savages, who are ever ready to invest that which is new with some marvellous attribute. Botanists all assign an American origin to maize, and believe its native home to be Paraguay, or some region of Central America, and therefore it is assumed that it was unknown in the Eastern Hemisphere before the days of Columbus, who is said to have introduced it into Spain in 1520. But it is reported to have been found growing at the Cape at the time of its first discovery by the Portuguese in 1493, and we are told it is figured in an old Chinese book of botany in the national library of Paris ; and grains of maize are said to have been found in ancient houses in Athens, as well as in the wrappings of Egyptian mummies, whilst some have supposed that this was the ' corn of Egypt.' This, however, is hardly possible, seeing that it has never yet been found figured on the monuments of Egypt, whilst wheat is frequently represented. The first notice of this corn is found in ' The Nieue Her- ball,' published in London in 1578, where it is described as MAIZE AND MILLET 37 Frnmentum Turcicum or Frumentum Asiaticum, in French, Ble de Turquie or Bit Sarazin ; in English, Turkey corn or Indian wheat ; and the author says of it, 'This grayne groweth in Turkic wher as it is used in time of dearth,' adding, c There is as yet no certain experience of the natural vertues of this corne. The bread that is made thereof is drie and harde, having very small fatnesse or moysture, wherefore men may easily judge that it nourisheth little, and is evill of digestion.' One thing is certain, whatever may have been the origin of maize, and the date of its first cultivation in America and in the Old World, it is now grown very extensively in all parts of the world in which the climate is suitable, even in the heart of savage Africa and in Madagascar, forming every- where one of the staple foods of man. It does not ripen always with us, but might, I believe, be grown advantageously to supply the market with that delicious vegetable so highly esteemed in America and South Africa (green corn\ which we now only get in tins from America. Tinned green corn and succotash, which is a mixture of green corn and beans, have of late years found their way into English households, and very good they are, but the corn on the cob, as eaten in America, is better, as all who have tasted it will testify. Although maize appears to have been early known in China, it is not named among the five sorts of corn culti- vated by the Chinese in the days of Chin-Nong, their second emperor, or the head of the second dynasty — some historians placing seventeen emperors between him and Fohi, who, according to the Chinese annals, reigned over a people differing little from brutes. Fohi taught the people to fish, and to domesticate animals for food, and Chin-Nong 38 OUR VIANDS