ANOTHER SUGGESTED DERIVATION 53 Duchy of Ferrara, Italy, and a neighboring town or small state, which presents grana de Brasill in a long list including wax, furs, incense, indigo, and other merchandise. 5 The same curious phrase, "grain of Brazil," recurs in a quite independent local charta of the same country only five years later. Muratori, who garnered such things into his famous compilation of Italian antiquities, avowed his bewilderment over this strange phrase, asking what dyewood could be so called; and Humboldt, recon- sidering the whole matter, was no more clear in mind. He calls attention to the fact that cochineal very long afterward bore the same name, but evidently without considering this any sort of solution, as, indeed, it could not well be, since it bears distinct reference to the South American Brazil, which was discovered and named centuries later. But the facts remain that grain does not naturally mean dyewood of any kind or in any form, that its recurrence in public documents proves it a well-established characterization of a known article of trade in the twelfth century, and that its presentation is such as to indicate a granular packaged material. Perhaps an explanation may be found in Marco Polo's experi- ence and experiments nearly a century later than these Italian documents. Of Lambri, a district in Sumatra, he writes: They also have brazil in great quantities. This they sow, and when it is grown to the size of a small shoot they take it up and transplant it; then they let it grow for three years, after which they tear it up by the root. You must know that Messer Marco Polo aforesaid brought some seed of the brazil, such as they sow, to Venice with him and had it sown there, but never a thing came up. And I fancy it was because the climate was too cold. 6 The seeds of that Sumatran shrub might well pass for grain in the sense of a small granular object, as we say a grain of sand, for example. But, since the plant was not and perhaps could not
- L. A. Muratori: Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi, 6 vols., Milan, 1738-42;
reference in Vol. 2, pp. 891 and 894. Sir Henry Yule: The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, 3rd edit., revised ... by Henri Cordier, 2 vols., London, 1903 ; reference in Vol. 2, p.299. See also pp-306, 3i3,and3iS (note4).
