There appear to have been areas of specialization across different regions, communities living on the Elgeyo escarpment for instance traditionally focused on irrigated cultivation. A variety of crops had been borrowed from the neighboring Bantu communities and New World foods introduced following the arrival of the Portuguese on the Swahili coast during the fifteenth century. Of these, indigenous vegetables and herbs, beans, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and tobacco were grown widely while maize and bananas were also cultivated though in small quantities.