346 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



when the bark separates easily from the wood, and 

 has the inside covered with a mucilaginous juice ; 

 but if that be not carefully removed, the flavour of 

 the spice is injured. The shoots are cut when from 

 half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and in 

 lengths of from two to three feet. Many hands are 

 employed in this work ; each man is obliged to fur- 

 nish a certain quantity of sticks. When this part of 

 his task is fulfilled, he conveys his fragrant load to a 

 shed allotted for the purpose, where the bark is in- 

 stantly stripped from the wood, and freed from the 

 epidermis, which is scraped off. The fragrance dif- 

 fused around, during this process, is described as 

 being extremely delightful ; but in parts of the 

 plantation remote from this spot, unless the trees be 

 agitated with violence, the peculiar smell of the 

 cinnamon cannot be distinguished.* The wood, 

 deprived of the bark, has no smell, and is used as 

 fuel. 



When the bark is perfectly cleansed it is of a pale 

 yellow colour, and about the thickness of parch- 

 ment. It is then placed on mats, to dry in the sun, 

 when it curls up, and acquires a darker tint. The 

 smaller pieces are then put inside the larger, and 

 the whole close together into the tubular form in 

 which it is sold in the shops. When the rind, or 

 part forming the cinnamon, is first taken from the 

 tree, it is described as consisting of an outer por- 

 tion which tastes like common bark, and an inner 

 portion, which is very sweet and aromatic. In the 

 course of the drying, the oil of the inner portion, 

 on which the flavour depends, is communicated 

 to the whole ; and the quality of the entire bark is 

 understood to depend more upon the relative quan- 

 tities of those portions of the bark than upon any- 

 thing else. The cinnamon of Ceylon has the outer 



* Cordiner's Ceylon. 



