CINNAMON. 



CHAPTER XVIL 



TROPICAL SPICES. 



The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceylon — Immense profits of tlie Dutch — Decline of the 

 Trade — Neglected state of the Gardens— Nutmegs and Cloves — Cruel monopoly 

 of the Dutch — A Spice Fire in Amsterdam — The Clove Tree — Beauty of an 

 Avenue of Clove Trees — The Nutmeg Tree — Mace — The Pepper Vine — The 

 Pimento Tree. 



ALTHOUGrH the beautiful laurel whose bark furnishes the 

 most exquisite of all the spices of the East, is indigenous 

 to the forests of Ceylon, yet, as no author previous to the 

 fourteenth century mentions its aromatic rind among the pro- 

 ductions of the island, there is every reason to believe that the 

 cinnamon, which in the earlier ages was imported into Europe 

 through Arabia, was obtained first from Africa, and afterwards 

 from India. That the Portuguese, who had been mainly at- 

 tracted to the East by the fame of its spices, were nearly 

 twenty years in India before they took steps to obtain a footing 

 at Colombo, proves that there can have been nothing very 

 remarkable in the quality of the spice at the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, and that the high reputation of the Ceylon 

 cinnamon is comparatively modern, and attributable to the 

 attention bestowed upon its preparation for market by the 

 Portuguese, and afterwards on its cultivation by the Dutch. 



Long after the appearance of Europeans in Ceylon, cinnamon 

 was only found in the forests of the interior, where it was cut 

 and brought away by the Chalias, an emigrant tribe which, in 

 consideration of its location in villages, was bound to go into 



