LOGWOOD AND INDIGO 



the most barbarous penalties on any interloper. For in- 

 stance, any one who sold a single stick of cinnamon in 

 Ceylon was punished with death. When the English cap- 

 tured the island in 1796, all such restrictions were of course 

 repealed. Nevertheless its cultivation remained a monopoly 

 of the East India Company until 1832. 



Logwood {Haematoocyhn campechianum) is closely con- 

 nected with the story of adventure and colonisation in the 

 West Indies. Its use was at first forbidden by Queen 

 Elizabeth as it did not yield fast colours ; this was because 

 the dyers of those times did not know of any mordant to 

 fix them. Yet this is one of the few vegetable dyes which 

 retain their position in the market in these days of aniline 

 colours, and it is said to be a large constituent, with brandy, 

 of cheap " port wine."" 



Indigo was known to the Romans, who imported it from 

 India on camel-back by way of the Persian and Syrian 

 desert. In the fifteenth century, when the Dutch began to 

 introduce it in large quantities, it was found to interfere 

 with the "woad'"*^ (Isatis tinctoria) which was then a very 

 important cultivated plant in Europe. In Nuremberg, an 

 oath was administered once a year to all the manufacturers 

 and dyers, by which they bound themselves not to use the 

 "deviFs dye,"" as they called Indigo. Its more recent his- 

 tory shows a very different system. In Assam and other 

 parts of British India, enormous sums of money have been 

 invested in indigo plantations. It has been estimated that 

 four million pounds was invested, and that a population of 

 something like 700 Europeans and 850 workmen to the square 

 mile in Behar, were entirely supported by indigo plantations. 



^ The same "woad" which was used by the Britons to paint them- 

 selves with. 



35 



