CINNAMON 107 



The following are some of the chief spices which we use at 

 the present day : 



CINNAMON. ' In this Hand (Ceylon) there groweth fine 

 Sinamon ... I was desirous to see how they gather the 

 Sinamon, or take it from the tree it groweth on, and so much 

 the rather, because the time that I was there was the season 

 they gather it in, which was in the moneth of Aprill, at which 

 time the Portugals were in Armes. and in the field, with the 

 King of the Country ; yet I to satisfy my desire, although in 

 great danger, took a guide with me, and went into a Wood 

 three miles from the Citie, in which wood was a great store 

 of Sinamon trees growing together among other wild trees ; 

 and this Sinamon tree is a small tree, 1 and not very high 

 and hath leaves like to our Bay-tree. In the moneth of March 

 or Aprill, when the sappe goeth up to the top of the tree, then 

 they take the Sinamon from that tree in this wise. They cut 

 the barke off the tree round about in length from knot to 

 knot, or from joynt to joynt, above and below, and then 

 easily with their hands they take it away, laying it in the 

 Sunne to drie, and in this wise it is gathered, and yet for all 

 this the tree dyeth not, but against the next yeare it will have 

 a new bark.' 2 



The cinnamon gardens of Ceylon are down in the moist 

 sandy lowlands near Colombo, but the cinnamon tree (Cinna- 

 momum Zeylanicum) also grows wild in abundance all over 

 the rainy part of the island up to a height of 2,000 feet, for 

 Ceylon is the original home of the tree, as its name indicates 

 (Zeylanicum, of Ceylon), and the cinnamon produced there is 

 superior in flavour to that produced in other countries. 



The tree is an evergreen belonging to the laurel family, 

 and in its native forests reaches a height of from forty to sixty 

 feet, but on plantations it is pruned and kept low. Under 

 these conditions it sends up from the root four or five long 

 straight shoots which come to perfection in about eighteen 

 months' time. 



It has long, dark-green, shiny, leathery leaves, arranged 



1 In many places it grows to a height of sixty feet. 



2 ' Extracts of Master Caesar Frederick his eighteene yeeres Indian 

 Observations ' (Purchas His Pilgrimes), 



