The true Cardamomum majus is a conical fruit,[2415] in size and shape not unlike a small fig reversed, containing roundish angular seeds, of an agreeable aromatic flavour, much resembling that of the Malabar cardamom, and quite devoid of the burning taste of grains of paradise. Each fruit is perforated, having been strung on a cord to dry; such strings of cardamoms are sometimes used by the Arabs as rosaries. The fruit in question is called in the Galla language Korarima, but it is also known as Gurági spice, and by its Arabic names of Heil and Habhal-habashi.[2416] According to Beke,[2417] it is conveyed to the market of Báso (10° N. lat.), in Southern Abyssinia, from Tumhé, a region lying in about 9° N. lat. and 35° E. long.; thence it is carried to Massowah, on the Red Sea, and shipped for India and Arabia. Von Heuglin[2418] speaks of it as brought from the Galla country. It is not improbable that it is the same fruit which Speke[2419] saw growing in 1862 at Uganda, in lat 0°, and which he says is strung like a necklace by the Wagonda people. Under the name of Heel Habashee, Korarima cardamoms were contributed in 1873 from Shoa to the Vienna exhibition; we have also been presented, in 1877, with an excellent specimen of them, recently imported, by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig.
Pereira proposed for the plant the name of Amomum Korarima, but it has never been botanically described. It would appear from the above statements that it must be indigenous to the whole mountainous region of Eastern Africa, from the Victoria Nyanza lake (Uganda) to the countries of Tumhé, Gurague, and Shoa, south and south-eastward of Abyssinia.
GRANA PARADISI.
Semina Cardamomi majoris, Piper Melegueta; Grains of Paradise, Guinea Grains, Melegueta Pepper; F. Grains de Paradis, Maniguette; G. Paradieskörner.
Botanical Origin—Amomum Melegueta Roscoe—an herbaceous, reed-like plant, 3 to 5 feet high, producing on a scape rising scarcely an inch above the ground, a delicate, wax-like, pale purple flower, which is succeeded by a smooth, scarlet, ovoid fruit, 3 to 4 inches in length, rising out of sheathing bracts.[2420]
It varies considerably in the dimensions of all its parts, according to more or less favourable circumstances of soil and climate. In Demerara, where the plant grows luxuriously in cultivation, the fruit is as large as a fine pear, measuring with its tubular part as much as 5 inches in length by 2 inches in diameter; on the other hand, in some parts of West Africa it scarcely exceeds in size a large filbert. It has a thick fleshy pericarp, enclosing a colourless acid pulp of pleasant taste, in which are imbedded the numerous seeds.
A. Melegueta is widely distributed in tropical West Africa, occurring along the coast region from Sierra Leone to Congo. The littoral region, termed, in allusion to its producing grains of paradise, the Grain Coast, Pepper Coast, or Melegueta Coast, lies between Liberia and Cape Palmas; or, more exactly, between Capes Mesurado (Montserrado) and St. Andrews. The Gold Coast, whence the seeds are now principally exported, is in the Gulf of Guinea, further eastward.
Of the distribution of the plant in the interior we have no exact information. Yet the name Melegueta refers to the ancient empire of Melle (Meli or Melly), formerly extending over the upper Niger region, about in 4° E. long., and then inhabited by the Mandingos, now by the Fulbe or Fullãn. Messena is their most considerable place. In that region Amomum Melegueta may be indigenous, or the spice, being formerly exported from the coast by way of Melle, took its commercial name in allusion to the latter.
History—There is no evidence that the ancients were acquainted with the seeds called Grains of Paradise; nor can we find any reference to them earlier than an incidental mention under their African name, in the account[2421] of a curious festival held at Treviso in a.d. 1214: it was a sort of tournament, during which a sham fortress, held by twelve noble ladies and their attendants, was besieged and stormed by assailants armed with flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, perfumes, and spices, amongst which last figure—Melegetæ!
After this period there are many notices, showing the seeds to have been in general use. Nicolas Myrepsus,[2422] physician at the court of the Emperor John III. at Nicœa, in the 13th century, prescribed Μνεγέται; and his contemporary, Simon of Genoa,[2423] at Rome, names the same drug as Melegete or Melegette. Grana Paradisi are enumerated among spices sold at Lyons[2424] in 1245, and were used about the same time by the Welsh Physicians of Myddvai under the name Grawn Paris.[2425] They also occur as Greyn Paradijs in a tariff of duties levied at Dordrecht in Holland[2426] in 1358. And again among the spices used by John, king of France, when in England, a.d. 1359-60, Grainne de Paradis is repeatedly mentioned.[2427]