1G2 



COLOMBO. 



[Part VIT. 



surround Colombo on the land-side, exhibits the effects 

 of a quarter of a century of neglect, and produces a feel- 

 ing of disappointment and melancholy. The beauti- 

 ful shrubs which furnish the renowned spice have been 

 allowed to grow wild, and in some places are scarcely 

 visible, owing to undergrowth of jungle, and the thick 

 envelopment of chmbing plants, bignonias, ipomoeas, 

 the quadrangular vine, and the marvellous pitcher-plant, 

 {Nepenthes distillatoria), whose eccentric organisation is 

 still a scientific enigma. One most interesting flower, 

 which encumbers the cinnamon trees, is a night-blowing 

 convolvulus, the moon-flower of Europeans, called by the 

 natives ala?iga^, which never blooms in the day, but 

 opens its exquisite petals when darkness comes on, and 

 attracts the eye through the gloom, by its pure and snowy 

 whiteness. 



Less than a century has elapsed since these famous 

 gardens were formed by the Dutch, and already they are 

 relapsing into Avilderness. Every recent writer on Ceylon 

 has dwelt on their beauty and luxuriance, but hencefor- 

 ward it will remain to speak only of their decay. Tlie 

 history of the cinnamon laurel has been exhausted by 

 Nees Von Esenbach and his brother ; who, in the erudite 

 disquisition^ which they contributed to the Amoenitates 

 Botanical, condensed all the learning of ancients and 

 moderns regarding this celebrated tree.^ 



^ Colonyction speciosum, Choisy 

 (Ipoman honanox, L.). It is the 

 Munda-valli of Van Rlieede, Ilortus 

 Malahar., vol. ii. tab. 50. 



* l)e Cinnamonio Di'spufntio, by C. 

 G. and T. ¥. L. Nees von Esenbach. 

 Bonne, 182.3. 



^ llelative to the prrowth and cul- 

 tivation of cinnamon and the method 

 pursued by the chalias for " peeling- " 

 and preparinp- it for market, little 

 could be added to tlie copious details 

 of Valentyx, during the time of the 

 Dutch, and of Pekcival (chap. xvi. 

 p. 340), and Ooedinek (chap. xiii. p. 



405), imder the early government 

 of the British. A very able and 

 acciu'ate essay on the same subject 

 was conti-ibuted in 1817, to the 

 Annals of I*hilosoj>/i;/, vol. Iviii., by 

 Henry Marshall, P\R.S.E., who 

 served on the medical staff in Cey- 

 lon, and communicated the results 

 of personal observation and inquiry. 

 Iliere is an interesting paper in the 

 Journal of the Roi/al Asiatic Society 

 (London), for 1840, " On the Cinna- 

 mon Trade of Ceylon, its proyress 

 and present state, bv JoHN Cappek, 

 Esq." 



