ai3 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK n, 



sand seminal varieties. Some of them, to my taste, 

 are perfectly delicious.* 



I shall conclude this chapter, with an authentic cata- 

 logue of the foreign plants in the public botanical gar- 

 den of this island ; lamenting, at the same time, that I 

 am not able to gratify the reader with a more copious 

 and extensive display, from the magnificent collection 

 of my late friend Hinton East, Esquire, who had pro- 

 mised to favour me with an Hortus Eastensis, to be 

 prepared, under his own immediate inspection, pur- 

 posely for this w 7 ork; but much greater room have I 

 to lament the cause of my disappointment, and mourn 

 over the severity of that fate which suddenly snatch- 



* The cinnamon tree grows to the height of twenty or thirty feet j it 

 puts out numerous side branches with a dense foliage from the very bot- 

 tom of the trunk, which furnishes an opportunity of obtaining plenty of 

 layers, and facilitates the propagation cf the tree, as, it does not perfect 

 its seeds in any quantity under six or seven years, when it becomes so 

 plentifully loaded, that a single tree is almost sufficient for a colony. 

 When planted from layers, it is of a pretty quick growth, reaching in eight 

 years the height of fifteen or twenty feet, is very spreading, and furnished 

 with numerous branches of a fit size foi decorticarion. The seeds are long 

 iu coming up. The small branches of about an inch diameter yield the 

 best cinnamon, which is itself the limber or inner bark of the tree, and it 

 requires some dexterity to separate the outer barks, which would vitiate 

 the flavour. Specimens of the inner bark, transmitted by Dr. Dancer, 

 the island botanist, to the Society of Arts, were found fully to possess 

 the aroma and taste of the true cinnamon from Ceylon, and indeed to be 

 superior to any cinnamon imported from Holland} and in all other re- 

 spects to agree perfectly with the description of the oriental cinnamon 

 given by Burman. See their resolutions of the i^th December 1790, 



